Large mammal declines and the incipient loss of mammal-bird mutualisms in an African savanna ecosystem

PloS One
Nathan DiplockChristian Kiffner

Abstract

Over the past half-century, large mammal populations have declined substantially throughout East Africa, mainly due to habitat loss and unsustainable direct exploitation. While it has been acknowledged that the loss of large mammals can have direct and cascading effects on community composition and ecosystem characteristics, limited quantitative work has been done on how declines of large herbivore populations impacts the abundance of mutualistic symbionts. Using a space-for-time observational approach, we quantified the large mammal community alongside the densities, host preferences and behaviors of mutualistic red-billed oxpeckers (Buphagus erythrorhynchus), and yellow-billed oxpeckers (Buphagus africanus) in northern Tanzania. At the landscape scale, mammal community composition was substantially less diverse in highly human-dominated areas when compared with more protected areas, with an observed complete loss of large wild mammal species in two study areas. Mirroring this trend, oxpecker densities were lowest in the least protected areas, and highest in fully protected areas. Using resource selection functions implemented via generalized linear models at different scales, we found that oxpeckers (1) were predominantly (67...Continue Reading

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Citations

Apr 11, 2020·Current Biology : CB·Roan D Plotz, Wayne L Linklater

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Software Mentioned

MuMIn
R
COSTECH
TAWIRI
R package igraphs
R package gplots

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