Description
- Abstract:
- The resource specialization hypothesis posits that all consumers exhibit some degree of specialization and thus more diverse plant communities should support a greater diversity of herbivores. This has been largely borne out in communities of phytophagous insects, but the extent to which is applies to larger-bodied and highly mobile mammalian herbivores with generalized feeding systems has received less attention. We hypothesized that local plant community abundance and diversity (10s-100s of meters) is positively correlated with the abundance and diversity of large mammalian herbivores. We performed phylogenetically controlled analyses of spatial associations between plant and large mammalian herbivore community diversity at Mpala Research Centre’s ForestGEO plot in Kenya. The analysis was based on a 1.2-km2 fine-grained map of tree stems and a grid of camera traps collected in conjunction with fine-scale topographic measurements. Local plant taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity were found to be weak predictors of local large-herbivore diversity, and contrary to prevailing theory, more often negatively correlated with one another. However, we did find that woody plant and large-mammal community turnover were strongly correlated, reflecting the strong segregation of both plant and animal community types across spatially adjacent but edaphically and topographically distinct habitat classes. Opposing gradients in plant and herbivore abundance and diversity in response to underlying abiotic conditions highlight their important role in the structure and function of savanna ecosystems.
- Notes:
- Thesis (Sc. M.)--Brown University, 2020
Access Conditions
- Rights
- In Copyright
- Restrictions on Use
- All rights reserved. Collection is open to the Brown community for research.
Citation
Freeman, Patrick Tyler,
"Opposing spatial gradients in the abundance and diversity of woody plants and large herbivores in a semi-arid African savanna"
(2020).
Ecological and Evolutionary Biology Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.26300/spd3-jy93
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Collection:
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Ecological and Evolutionary Biology Theses and Dissertations
Theses and Dissertations for the Ecological and Evolutionary Biology department....