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14 results for “elephant foraging”
Foraging strategies and lifetime fitness in northern elephant seals
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Data From: Effects of disease on foraging behaviour and success in an individual free-ranging northern elephant seal
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Mass harvested per trunkload as a constraint to forage consumption by the African elephant
<p>Data in the form of comma delimited text files and R-scripts for analyses for paper on the influence of trunkload mass on food selection by African elephants.</p>
Data from: Foraging history of individual elephants using DNA metabarcoding
<p>Individual animals should adjust diets according to food availability. We used DNA metabarcoding to construct individual-level dietary timeseries for elephants from two family groups in Kenya varying in habitat use, social position, and reproductive status. We detected at least 367 dietary plant taxa, with up to 137 unique plant sequences in one fecal sample. Results matched well-established trends: elephants tended to eat more grass when it rained and other plants when dry. Nested within these switches from 'grazing' to 'browsing' strategies, dietary DNA revealed seasonal shifts in food richness, composition, and overlap between individuals. Elephants of both families converged on relatively cohesive diets in dry seasons but varied in their maintenance of cohesion during wet seasons. Dietary cohesion throughout the timeseries of the subdominant 'Artists' family was stronger and more consistently positive compared to the dominant 'Royals' family. The greater degree of individuality within the dominant family's timeseries could reflect more divergent nutritional requirements associated with calf-dependency and/or priority access to preferred habitats. Whereas theory predicts that individuals should specialize on different foods under resource scarcity, our data suggest family bonds may promote cohesion and foster the emergence of diverse feeding cultures reflecting links between social behavior and nutrition.</p>
Data from: Sex, body size, and boldness shape the seasonal foraging habitat selection in southern elephant seals
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Data from: Foraging history of individual elephants using DNA metabarcoding
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Data from: Marine foraging ecology influences mercury bioaccumulation in deep-diving northern elephant seals
Mercury contamination of oceans is prevalent worldwide and methylmercury concentrations in the mesopelagic zone (200–1000 m) are increasing more rapidly than in surface waters. Yet mercury bioaccumulation in mesopelagic predators has been understudied. Northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) biannually travel thousands of kilometres to forage within coastal and open-ocean regions of the northeast Pacific Ocean. We coupled satellite telemetry, diving behaviour and stable isotopes (carbon and nitrogen) from 77 adult females, and showed that variability among individuals in foraging location, diving depth and δ13C values were correlated with mercury concentrations in blood and muscle. We identified three clusters of foraging strategies, and these resulted in substantially different mercury concentrations: (i) deeper-diving and offshore-foraging seals had the greatest mercury concentrations, (ii) shallower-diving and offshore-foraging seals had intermediate levels, and (iii) coastal and more northerly foraging seals had the lowest mercury concentrations. Additionally, mercury concentrations were lower at the end of the seven-month-long foraging trip (n = 31) than after the two-month- long post-breeding trip (n = 46). Our results indicate that foraging behaviour influences mercury exposure and mesopelagic predators foraging in the northeast Pacific Ocean may be at high risk for mercury bioaccumulation.
Data from: Body condition influences ontogeny of foraging behavior in juvenile southern elephant seals
1. Ontogeny of diving and foraging behaviour in marine top predators is poorly understood despite its importance in population recruitment. This lack of knowledge is partly due to the difficulties of monitoring juveniles in the wild, which is linked to high mortality early in life. 2. Pinnipeds are good models for studying the development of foraging behaviours because juveniles are large enough to robustly carry tracking devices for many months. Moreover, parental assistance is absent after a juvenile departs for its first foraging trip, minimising confounding effects of parental input on the development of foraging skills. 3. In this study, we tracked 20 newly-weaned juvenile southern elephant seals from Kerguelen Islands for up to 338 days during their first trip at sea following weaning. We used a new generation of satellite relay tags, which allow for the transmission of dive, accelerometer and location data. We also monitored, at the same time, nine adult females from the colony during their post-breeding trips, in order to compare diving and foraging behaviours. 4. Juveniles showed a gradual improvement through time in their foraging skills. Like adults females, they remarkably adjusted their swimming effort according to temporal changes in buoyancy (i.e. a proxy of their body condition). They also did not appear to exceed their aerobic physiological diving limits, although dives were constrained by their smaller size compared to adults. Changes in buoyancy appeared to also influence their decision to either keep foraging or return to land, alongside the duration of their haul outs and choice of foraging habitat (oceanic vs plateau). 5. Further studies are thus needed to better understand how patterns in juveniles survival, and therefore elephant seal populations, might be affected by their changes in foraging skills and changes in their environmental conditions.
Assessing the effects of elephant foraging on the structure and diversity of an Afrotropical forest
<p>African forest elephants (<i>Loxodonta cyclotis</i>) are ecosystem engineers that browse and damage large quantities of vegetation during their foraging and movement. Though elephant trail networks and clearings are conspicuous features of many African forests, the consequences of elephant foraging for forest structure and diversity are poorly documented. In this study in northeastern Gabon, we compare stem size, stem density, proportional damage, species diversity, and species relative abundance of seedlings and saplings in the vicinity of seven tree species that produce elephant-preferred fruits ("elephant trees") relative to control trees that do not. Across 34 survey trees, with a combined census area of 2.04 ha, we recorded data on 26,128 woody stems in three sizes classes. Compared to control trees, the area around elephant trees had: a) a significantly greater proportion of damaged seedlings and a marginally greater proportion of damaged saplings (with 82% and 24% greater odds of damage, respectively); b) no significant difference in stem density or species diversity; and c) a significantly greater relative abundance of seedlings of elephant tree species. Increasing distance away from focal elephant trees was associated with significantly reduced sapling stem damage, significantly increased sapling stem density, and significantly increased sapling species diversity. Considered in sum, our results suggest that elephants can affect the structure and diversity of Afrotropical forests through their foraging activities, with some variation based on location and plant size class. Developing a more complete understanding of elephants' ecological effects will require continued research, ideally with manipulative experiments.</p>
Data from: Determinants of elephant foraging behavior in a coupled human-natural system: is brown the new green?
1. Crop raiding by wildlife poses major threats to both wildlife conservation and human wellbeing in agro-ecosystems worldwide. These threats are particularly acute in many parts of Africa, where crop raiders include globally threatened megafauna such as elephants, and where smallholder agriculture is a primary source of human livelihood. One framework for understanding herbivore feeding behavior, the forage-maturation hypothesis, predicts that herbivores should align their movements with intermediate forage biomass (i.e., peak green-up); this phenomenon is known as "surfing the green wave." Crop-raiding elephants, however, often consume not just foliage, but also fruits and tubers (e.g., maize, potatoes), which generally mature after seasonal peaks in photosynthetic activity. Thus, although elephants have been reported to surf the green wave in natural habitats, they may utilize a different strategy in cultivated landscapes by selecting crops that are "browning down." 2. We sought to understand the factors that underpin movement of elephants into agricultural landscapes. 3. In Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park, we used movement data from GPS-collared elephants, together with precipitation records, remotely sensed estimates of landscape greenness (NDVI), DNA-based diet analysis, measurements of plant nutritional quality, and survey-based metrics of crop availability to understand spatiotemporal variation in elephant crop-raiding behavior. 4. Elephants tracked peak NDVI while foraging inside the Park. During the dry season, however, when NDVI within the Park declined and availability of mature crops was high, crop-raiding increased dramatically, and elephants consistently selected crop plants that were browning down while foraging in cultivated landscapes. Crops contained significantly higher digestible energy than wild food plants, but comparable (and sometimes lower) levels of digestible protein, suggesting that this foraging strategy maximized energy rather than protein intake. 5. Our study is the first to combine GPS tracking data with high-resolution diet analysis and community-based reporting of crop availability to reveal fine-scale plasticity in foraging behavior of elephants at the human-wildlife interface. Our results extend the forage-maturation hypothesis by showing that elephants surf waves of plant brown-down in cultivated landscapes. These findings can aid efforts to reduce human-elephant conflict by enabling wildlife managers to prioritize mitigation actions in time and space with limited resources.
Data from: Determinants of elephant foraging behavior in a coupled human-natural system: is brown the new green?
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Data from: Body condition influences ontogeny of foraging behavior in juvenile southern elephant seals
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Data from: Marine foraging ecology influences mercury bioaccumulation in deep-diving northern elephant seals
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Assessing the effects of elephant foraging on the structure and diversity of an Afrotropical forest
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Allen Brain Atlas
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