Relationships between herbivores and Colophospermum mopane of the Northern Tuli Game Reserve, Botswana /

Abstract

This study elicits the resilience of Colophospermum mopane as a tree. Elephant impact is extremely important in creating and maintaining niche requirements of other organisms, especially insects, associated with mopane trees. The value of mopane as a browse is documented seasonally, this resource proving to have been previously underrated. Plant apparency results from mopane trees having different insect associations. These insect associations are of great ecological importance, and their relationships with elephants, previously overlooked, are documented. Mopane moth caterpillars, absent from within the confines of the NTGR for almost twenty years, are often encountered just outside the NTGR. Factors hypothesized to be responsible for their local extinction include ant predation, edaphic factors and browse quality differences, between mopane trees in the NTGR and those in adjoining areas. This study concludes that large mammals, especially elephants, are managing the resources of the NTGR.