| Autor: |
Ricardo M Holdo, John M Fryxell, Anthony R E Sinclair, Andrew Dobson, Robert D Holt |
| Jazyk: |
angličtina |
| Rok vydání: |
2011 |
| Předmět: |
|
| Zdroj: |
PLoS ONE, Vol 6, Iss 1, p e16370 (2011) |
| Druh dokumentu: |
article |
| ISSN: |
1932-6203 |
| DOI: |
10.1371/journal.pone.0016370 |
| Popis: |
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. |
| Databáze: |
Directory of Open Access Journals |
| Externí odkaz: |
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