Landscape‐scale effects of herbivores on treefall in African savannas

作者: Gregory P. Asner , Shaun R. Levick

DOI: 10.1111/J.1461-0248.2012.01842.X

关键词:

摘要: Herbivores cause treefalls in African savannas, but rates are unknown at large scales required to forecast changes biodiversity and ecosystem processes. We combined landscape-scale herbivore exclosures with repeat airborne Light Detection Ranging of 58 429 trees Kruger National Park, South Africa, assess sources savanna treefall across nested gradients climate, topography, soil fertility. Elephants were revealed as the primary agent widely varying conditions, a large-scale 'elephant trap' predominantly removes maturing 5-9 m height range. Treefall averaged 6 times higher areas accessible elephants, proportionally more occurred on high-nutrient basalts lowland catena areas. These patterns superimposed climate-mediated regime increasing precipitation absence herbivores. reveal environmental controls underpinning herbivore-mediated tree turnover, highlighting need for context-dependent science management.

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