| Popis: |
Elephant-woodland interactions at the Nazinga Game Ranch in south-central Burkina Faso, West Africa, were studied. The ranch covers 940 km 2 of tallgrass Combretum/Terminalia woodland. The density of tree and shrub stems abobe 1 m tall averaged approximately 800/ha, and remained relatively unchanged at densities from 0 to 0·6 elephants/km 2 . At higher elephant densities, woody-stem density was sharply reduced. At low elephant densities (less than 0·6 elephants/km 2 ), the size distribution of woody stems had on increased proportion of larger trees compared with the stratum containing no elephants. The highest density of elephants (2·5/km 2 ) showed no further changes in the size-class distribution of trees and shrubs, but a change in species composition was apparent with increasing proportions of species of low palatability for elephants. An elephant density between 0·5 and 0·6/km 2 is suggested to keep major short-term vegetation changes to a minimum. |
