Cross-boundary human impacts compromise the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem

Loading...
Thumbnail Image

Date

Authors

Veldhuis, Michiel P.
Ritchie, Mark E.
Ogutu, Joseph O.
Morrison, Thomas A.
Beale, Colin M.
Estes, Anna B.
Mwakilema, William
Ojwang, Gordon O.
Parr, Catherine Lucy
Probert, James

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Abstract

Protected areas provide major benefits for humans in the form of ecosystem services, but landscape degradation by human activity at their edges may compromise their ecological functioning. Using multiple lines of evidence from 40 years of research in the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem, we find that such edge degradation has effectively “squeezed” wildlife into the core protected area and has altered the ecosystem’s dynamics even within this 40,000-square-kilometer ecosystem. This spatial cascade reduced resilience in the core and was mediated by the movement of grazers, which reduced grass fuel and fires, weakened the capacity of soils to sequester nutrients and carbon, and decreased the responsiveness of primary production to rainfall. Similar effects in other protected ecosystems worldwide may require rethinking of natural resource management outside protected areas.

Description

Supplementary Materials: Supplementary Text; Figs. S1 to S31; Tables S1 to S9; References (48–82)

Keywords

Carbon, Rain, Anthropogenic effect, Ecosystem dynamics, Ecosystem resilience, Ecosystem service, Human activity, Natural resource, Primary production, Protected area, Rainfall, Resource management, Carbon sequestration, Environmental impact, Environmental protection

Sustainable Development Goals

Citation

Veldhuis, M.P., Ritchie, M.E., Ogutu, J.O. et al. 2019, 'Cross-boundary human impacts compromise the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem', Science, vol. 363, no. 6434, pp. 1424-1428.