Predicted Impact of Barriers to Migration on the Serengeti Wildebeest Population

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