CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 27Wildlife Ecology and ConservationRangeland and Wildlife ManagementPlant and animal studies

Elephant both Increase and Decrease Availability of Browse Resources for Black Rhinoceros

Landman, Marietjie, Kerley, Graham I.·2014·Biotropica
DOI 10.1111/btp.12066
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Abstract Despite the apparent dual role of elephant Loxodonta africana in shaping the food niches of large herbivores, empirical studies focus on their role in facilitating foraging opportunities, while declining resource opportunities (a necessary requirement for competition) are rarely quantified. Our study investigates the relative importance of elephant in these processes by quantifying potential browsing opportunities (using total and preferred biomass, between‐bite distances and bite mass) for black rhinoceros Diceros bicornis along a gradient of elephant utilization in the succulent thickets of the Addo Elephant National Park, South Africa. We show that browse biomass and potential between‐bite harvest rates initially increase with the intensity of elephant utilization through the formation and spread of elephant pathways in otherwise impenetrable thicket. At the maximum, modeled estimates of total and preferred biomass are on average 223 percent and 254 percent higher, respectively, than that recorded in the absence of elephant (Exclosures); potential between‐bite harvest rates are 75 percent higher. With continued elephant utilization, however, browse biomass declines and between‐bite distances increase as the pathways expand and coalesce and canopy height declines. Our model of the change in potential browsing opportunities for rhinoceros reflects the accumulated effects of elephant over time, i.e., the effects accumulate until the relationship switches from increased to reduced availability. With this we demonstrate the key role of elephant for rhinoceros foraging, linked to a potential loss of this role at higher levels of utilization.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1111/btp.12066

Cites

53 of 53 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Very dense thicket areas in Addo are unsuitable for lion hunting because lions would struggle to move through or locate prey there.

    “The thicket vegetation in Addo can form virtually impenetrable stands, especially in the absence of elephants [42], and lions would struggle to move through the vegetation or locate prey within such areas, rendering them unsuitable for hunting, and possibly providing refuge for some prey species [45].”

    From Effects of Vegetation Structure on the Location of Lion Kill Sites in African Thicket (2016) · cites this paper as [42]

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Landman, M., & Kerley, G. I.
Affiliations
Nelson Mandela University (ZA)
Corresponding author
Landman, Marietjie
ORCID
Venue
Biotropica
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2013-09-17
Volume
46
Issue
1
Pages
42-49
ISSN
  • 0006-3606 (ISSN-L)
  • 1744-7429
DOI
10.1111/btp.12066
OpenAlex
W2106525824
Cited by
27
References
53
Citations by year
2025: 4 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 2
FWCI
2.94
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor (vor)
Locations
  • Biotropica (publishedVersion)
  • Nelson Mandela University Research Repository (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • National Research Foundation
  • Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University
  • Nelson Mandela University
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Wildlife Ecology and Conservation
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Rangeland and Wildlife Management
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Plant and animal studies
Keywords
black rhinoceros, Diceros bicornis, Loxodonta africana, herbivore competition, browse availability, foraging opportunities, canopy height, exclosures, Addo Elephant National Park

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review