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Predicted impact of barriers to migration on the Serengeti wildebeest population.

Authors :
Holdo RM
Fryxell JM
Sinclair AR
Dobson A
Holt RD
Source :
PloS one [PLoS One] 2011 Jan 25; Vol. 6 (1), pp. e16370. Date of Electronic Publication: 2011 Jan 25.
Publication Year :
2011

Abstract

The Serengeti wildebeest migration is a rare and spectacular example of a once-common biological phenomenon. A proposed road project threatens to bisect the Serengeti ecosystem and its integrity. The precautionary principle dictates that we consider the possible consequences of a road completely disrupting the migration. We used an existing spatially-explicit simulation model of wildebeest movement and population dynamics to explore how placing a barrier to migration across the proposed route (thus creating two disjoint but mobile subpopulations) might affect the long-term size of the wildebeest population. Our simulation results suggest that a barrier to migration--even without causing habitat loss--could cause the wildebeest population to decline by about a third. The driver of this decline is the effect of habitat fragmentation (even without habitat loss) on the ability of wildebeest to effectively track temporal shifts in high-quality forage resources across the landscape. Given the important role of the wildebeest migration for a number of key ecological processes, these findings have potentially important ramifications for ecosystem biodiversity, structure, and function in the Serengeti.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
1932-6203
Volume :
6
Issue :
1
Database :
MEDLINE
Journal :
PloS one
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
21283536
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0016370