Predicted impact of barriers to migration on the Serengeti wildebeest population.
PLoS One
; 6(1): e16370, 2011 Jan 25.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-21283536
ABSTRACT
The Serengeti wildebeest migration is a rare and spectacular example of a once-common biological phenomenon. A proposed road project threatens to bisect the Serengeti ecosystem and its integrity. The precautionary principle dictates that we consider the possible consequences of a road completely disrupting the migration. We used an existing spatially-explicit simulation model of wildebeest movement and population dynamics to explore how placing a barrier to migration across the proposed route (thus creating two disjoint but mobile subpopulations) might affect the long-term size of the wildebeest population. Our simulation results suggest that a barrier to migration--even without causing habitat loss--could cause the wildebeest population to decline by about a third. The driver of this decline is the effect of habitat fragmentation (even without habitat loss) on the ability of wildebeest to effectively track temporal shifts in high-quality forage resources across the landscape. Given the important role of the wildebeest migration for a number of key ecological processes, these findings have potentially important ramifications for ecosystem biodiversity, structure, and function in the Serengeti.
Texto completo:
1
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Simulação por Computador
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Ruminantes
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Migração Animal
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2011
Tipo de documento:
Article