Megaherbivores influence trophic guilds structure in African ungulate communities
We used a data set of ungulate censuses from 31 natural ecosystems from East and Southern Africa to test two hypotheses: (1) megaherbivores should dominate ungulate communities in ecosystems with high rain-fall and low soil nutrient status because of their ability to survive on poor quality food resources, and (2) the abundance of megaherbivores affects the abundance of the mesoherbivores, distinguishing the different feeding guilds: mesograzers, mesobrowsers and mesomixed feeders. Two axes of a multivariate analysis (77% of the variance) discriminated the sites well, the first separating sites dominated by megaherbivores from those dominated by mesoherbivores, and the second representing a gradient between mesograzers and mesobrowsers. Keywords: Browsers, Grazers, Herbivory, Mesoherbivores, Savannas.
Oecologia
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Megaherbivores.pdf | 289.41 KB |