Scientists a step closer to saving northern white rhino from extinction

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on August 23, 2019 / comment : 0 Endangered Species, Kenya, Natural Heritage, Wildlife

Veterinarians have successfully harvested eggs from the last two surviving northern white rhinos, taking them one step closer to bringing the species back from the brink of extinction, scientists said in Kenya on Friday.

Najin and daughter Fatu are the only surviving northern white rhinos [Credit: AFP]

Science is the only hope for the northern white rhino after the death last year of the last male, named Sudan, at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya where the groundbreaking procedure was carried out Thursday.

Two females, Najin, 30, and daughter Fatu, 19, are the only survivors of the subspecies of white rhino, and live under 24-hour armed guard at Ol Pejeta.

However neither is able to carry a calf. Fatu has degenerative lesions in her uterus and Najin has weak hind legs which could cause complications if she fell pregnant.

The rhinos underwent a highly risky procedure carried out by a team of international vets, which saw them anaesthetised for almost two hours, and their eggs extracted using techniques that have taken years of research and development.

"It was a great success, yesterday ten oocytes were harvested which was about the number we hoped for" said Jan Stejskal, of the Dvur Kralove Zoo in Czech Republic, which in 2009 sent four northern white rhinos to Kenya in a bid to encourage them to breed.

Technique developed from scratch

He explained that after the discovery that the two females were infertile in 2014, over 15 European zoos had given the green light for their their southern white rhino females to undergo the newly-developed egg extraction technique.

In July 2018 the first-ever rhino embryos were created, a hybrid of southern and northern white rhino.

The northern white rhino is on the brink of extinction [Credit: AFP]

The oocytes from Najin and Fatu were airlifted to a laboratory in Italy, where they will be fertilised with cryogenically frozen sperm -- of which there are samples from four deceased males -- likely by the end of the week.

Now scientists have to develop a technique to transfer the embryos into a surrogate rhino. This has been attempted in southern white rhinos but has yet to be successful.

Then it is a race against time to extract as many more eggs as possible from the living northern white females.

The team working on the project includes Ol Pejeta, Italian biotech laboratory Avantea, Czech zoo Dvur Kralove, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and the German-based Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research.

"As scientists we are gaining so much results and information about reproduction biology and assisted reproduction that can and will help other species which are not so close to the verge of extinction as the northern white rhino," said Frank Goritz, head veterinarian at the Leibnitz institute.

Richard Vigne, the managing director of Ol Pejeta, said efforts to revive the dying species were crucial to highlighting the "current crisis of extinction that we humans are responsible for."

Wiped out by poaching

There are five rhino species remaining on earth, of which black and white rhinos are found in Africa. The northern white rhino is generally considered a subspecies of white rhino although some scientists believe it to be a sixth species.

By 2008 the northern white rhino was considered extinct in the wild [Credit: AFP]

Rhinos have few predators in the wild due to their size but have been devastated by poaching for their horns -- used in traditional Chinese medicine.

Modern rhinos have plodded the earth for 26 million years. As recently as the mid-19th century there were more than one million in Africa. The western black rhino was declared extinct in 2011.

Obstacles to success

If the IVF is successful, scientists say there may be several births of northern white rhino calves, but the approach has its limits.

Eggs can only be collected from the females three times a year, and a lack of genetic diversity could hamper the survival of the species.


However the consortium of international scientists known as BioRescue is also trying to create artificial sex cells known as gametes via stem cell transformation from the frozen tissue of other, unrelated northern white rhinos, to diversify the gene pool.

The northern white rhino once roamed Uganda, the Central African Republic, Sudan and Chad.

It is hoped a revived population -- which could take up to 70 years -- could eventually be re-introduced into secure habitats in these areas.

"They lived in an area which really is not that safe right now, but there are some parts of their former range where they could be released," said Stejskal, adding there was hope for some conflict-torn nations to eventually provide a secure habitat in decades to come.

Author: Fran Blandy | Source: AFP [August 23, 2019]

Hidden mysteries lie in wait inside Kenya's fossil treasury

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on August 09, 2019 / comment : 0 Africa, Fossils, Kenya, Palaeontology

The only hint that something extraordinary lay inside the plain wooden drawer in an unassuming office behind Nairobi National Museum was a handwritten note stuck to the front: "Pull Carefully".

The 23-million-year-old bones of the newly-discovered giant, Simbakubwa kutokaafrika, had been left for nearly 40 years in a drawer [Credit: Simon Maina/AFP]

Inside, a monstrous jawbone with colossal fangs grinned from a bed of tattered foam -- the only known remains of a prehistoric mega-carnivore, larger than a polar bear, that researchers only this year declared a new species.

"This is one-of-a-kind," said Kenyan paleontologist Job Kibii, holding up the 23-million-year-old bones of the newly-discovered giant, Simbakubwa kutokaafrika, whose unveiling made headlines around the world.

But the remarkable fossils were not unearthed this year, or even this decade. They weren't even found this century.

For nearly 40 years, the specimens -- proof of the existence of Africa's largest-ever predator, a 1,500 kilogram (3,300-pound) meat eater that dwarfed later hunters like lions -- lived in a nondescript drawer in downtown Nairobi.

Kenyan paleontologist Job Kibii says there are "tonnes and tonnes of specimens... that haven't been analysed" [Credit: Simon Maina/AFP]

Museum staff knew the bones were something special -- they just didn't know what exactly. A source of intrigue, dusted off on occasion for guests, Simbakubwa lay in wait, largely forgotten.

How did these fossils, first excavated on a dig in western Kenya in the early 1980s, go unrecognised for so long?

Kibii -- who presides over the National Museums of Kenya's paleontology department, a collection unrivalled in East Africa and one of the world's great fossil treasuries -- has a pretty good idea.

"We have tonnes and tonnes of specimens... that haven't been analysed," he told AFP. "Definitely there are things waiting to be discovered."

Out of space

The main wing has changed little since legendary paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey first started stockpiling his finds there in the early 1960s.

The paleontology department at Nairobi National Museum still uses a card-based filing system, is running out of space and the collection has grown faster than the team can keep up with [Credit: Simon Maina/AFP]

A card-based filing system is still used to find a specific fossil among the trove, the entries written by hand. But the collection has grown exponentially, faster than Kibii and his team can keep up.

"We've run out of space," said Kibii, pausing between dusty archival shelves crammed floor to ceiling with finds, dating back more than half a century. "In this section alone, we have more than a million specimens."

Gigantic skulls of ancient crocodiles compete for space with a bygone species of horned giraffe. Nearby, the behemoth tusks of an early African elephant take up valuable real estate. Even the windowsills are littered with the petrified remains of all manner of weird and wonderful creatures.

Between 7,000 and 10,000 new fossils arrive at the lab every year, Kibii says, overwhelming his 15 staff who must painstakingly clean and log each specimen.

Between 7,000 and 10,000 new fossils arrive at the lab every year, according to paleontologist Job Kibii, of the Nairobi National Museum [Credit: Simon Maina/AFP]

By law, fossils uncovered in Kenya must go to the museum for "accessioning" -- the process of labelling, recording and storing for future generations. The backlog is enormous.

Chipping away

In a dark room, a lone staffer in a protective mask blasts away rock from fossil using an air-powered brush, as Kenyan pop tunes crackle through an old radio.

Outside the door, metal chests sent from dig sites filled to the brim await his magic touch -- literally years of work stretching before him.

If a specific expert is not on hand to identify a specimen, things can get wrongly categorised or waylaid.

By law, fossils uncovered in Kenya must go to the museum to be labelled, recorded and stored. The backlog is enormous [Credit: Simon Maina/AFP]

In some cases, they're sent to the dreaded "waiting area", where faded cardboard boxes, sagging with unknown and abandoned fossils, gather dust.

"We have fossils from the 1980s that have not been accessioned," said collections manager Francis Muchemi, chipping away at a giant elephant molar.

'Cradle of humanity'

Simbakubwa met a similar fate. Thought to be a type of hyena, it was filed away in a backroom and unstudied for decades, until stumbled upon by American researchers.

Specific finds unearthed at one of Kenya's many digs by researchers writing academic papers are given priority and fast-tracked for assessment by the museum. Even today though, the museum lacks specialists and resources.

Kibii is one of just seven paleontologists in Kenya. He trained in South Africa because there was no course available at home.

Despite its wealth of fossils, the Nairobi National Museum lacks specialists and resources. Staff say Kenya does not offer courses in paleontology and does not prioritise the science [Credit: Simon Maina/AFP]

"It's important because Kenya is the cradle of human evolution," said Muchemi, who learned his skills on the job. "We have very few Kenyans doing this job. Ninety-nine percent of the people who work here are foreign."

Kibii said paleontology was considered a lower priority than conserving Africa's endangered wildlife. "This one has been in the ground for millions of years. What are you saving it from?" he said, of the prevailing attitude to the science.

He hopes to acquire collapsable shelves to create space in the collection. Even better, a micro-CT scanner -- a powerful tool driving breakthroughs in the world of paleontology -- would allow a fresh look at the museum's most-forgotten corners.

"I always wonder what lies in there on some of these shelves," Kibii said. "Simbakubwa is telling a new story. What if, among these thousands, we have 10, 20, new stories that are lying, waiting to be told? That's always the mystery."

Author: Nick Perry | Source: AFP [August 09, 2019]

Changes in human diet shed light on human evolution

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on July 24, 2019 / comment : 0 Africa, Anthropology, Fossils, Human Evolution, Kenya

A shift in diet has long been seen as one of the critical adaptations that distinguishes our own genus Homo from earlier human ancestors. The timing and context of this dietary shift, however, has been hotly debated. A recent study by Columbian College of Arts and Sciences researchers finds that this change in the human diet reflects a behavioral shift approximately 1.65 million years ago.

David Patterson holds a hippopotamus tooth at East Turkana. This tooth was later sampled for its isotopic signature and included in the study [Credit: David Patterson]

David Patterson, Ph.D. and lead author on the paper, researched the ecological context of the human lineage between 2 and 1.4 million years ago at East Turkana in northern Kenya. As a Ph.D. candidate, he did field research in this region, which provides some of the best evidence of the transition from earlier Homo ancestors to Homo erectus, our extinct relative with many modern human like characteristics.

Dr. Patterson and researchers with the GW Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology studied how vegetation in this region changed during this period. They also looked at dietary changes of other mammals for comparison for patterns in the genus Homo.

"Our data supports the idea that once you see Homo erectus in the record, then you also see changes in the human body form to something that looks more human than all of the hominins that came before it," Dr. Patterson said.

This research revealed the dietary shift did not occur with the earliest members of the Homo genus, but actually occurred later in time, roughly 300,000 later in Homo erectus, said Andrew Barr, assistant professor of anthropology.

"Through the study of the diets of contemporary mammals, as well as the ancient soils preserved in the Turkana Basin, this work rules out the possibility that the dietary shift in our ancestors merely reflected a change in environmental conditions," he said.

The research team found that vegetation did not change significantly during this period and most other large mammals stayed dietarily static. The only changes appeared to be within the genus Homo, between early Homo and Homo erectus, Dr. Patterson said.

This is significant because in order for experts to say a certain trait made human ancestors fundamentally more human, such as this dietary changes, they need to understand similar types of data in other animals. If a similar dietary transition can be documented in other animals it is not unique to humans, Dr. Patterson said. One of the characteristics that separates humans from great apes is a varied diet that includes different resources the great apes either cannot eat or eat in very small quantities.

This research found that about 1.65 million years ago, human ancestors began to consume more resources from C4 plants, which include grasses and sedges—or the animals that eat them. This raises the question: What drove this dietary transition?

This research contributes to the broader conversation in the paleoanthropological community and existing hypotheses about the timing and significance of dietary changes in the genus Homo, said Dr. Patterson, now an assistant professor at the University of North Georgia.

"Our data suggests and supports this long-standing idea that something really, really interesting happened within the human lineage when Homo erectus came about in eastern Africa," Dr. Patterson said.

Author: Kristen Mitchell | Source: George Washington University [July 24, 2019]

Fossil of smallest old world monkey species discovered in Kenya

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on July 15, 2019 / comment : 0 Fossils, Kenya, Palaeontology, Wildlife

Researchers from the National Museums of Kenya, University of Arkansas, University of Missouri and Duke University have announced the discovery of a tiny monkey that lived in Kenya 4.2 million years ago.

The fossilized teeth of Simiolus minutus, a tiny ape that lived in East Africa during the Miocene Era [Credit: James B. Rossie, Andrew Hill]

Nanopithecus browni was the same size as a modern talapoin monkey, the smallest living Old World monkey species that weighs only 2 to 3 pounds, about the size of a cottontail rabbit. Talapoins are part of a large group of monkeys called guenons, which are commonplace and widespread across Africa today. Most species are several times larger in size than Nanopithecus browni.

Guenon evolution is poorly understood but thought to be driven by changes in forest habitats, with the distribution of modern species reflecting the breakup and re-convergence of ancient forests. Talapoins live only in West Central Africa, are confined to tropical forests, and are thought to be dwarfed from a larger ancestor in response to life in woody, swampy habitats.

The palate of a chimpanzee, left, compared to a Simiolus minutus molar, center. The figure on the right is the same chimpanzee palate, but scaled down to match the Simiolus molar [Credit: James B. Rossie, Andrew Hill]

Nanopithecus browni, though, was found in Kenya on the eastern side of the continent, at a site called Kanapoi. The Kanapoi habitat was dry and covered with grasslands and open forests - a very different place from the tropical forests of Cameroon and Gabon in West Central Africa. It is also at Kanapoi where remains of some of the earliest human ancestors, Australopithecus anamensis, have been found and would have lived alongside Nanopithecus browni.

Nanopithecus browni is the second oldest guenon found so far, just younger than the guenon single tooth found 10 years ago on the Arabian Peninsula. The ancient date, combined with a habitat so different and so far away from that of modern talapoins, reveals a much more complex evolution of guenon monkeys than previously thought. This new enigmatic member of the primate family reveals that dwarfing occurred far longer ago than scientists suspected and may have happened more than once, and in very different habitats perhaps for different reasons.

Typical guenon (Allenopithecus), left, compared to how large Nanopithecus browni, middle, would have been. The typical domestic cat included for scale comparison [Credit: Carol Ward]

Nanopithecus browni was discovered by the West Turkana Paleo Project, led by Fredrick Kyalo Manthi of the National Museums of Kenya, with project co-leaders Carol Ward of the University of Missouri and Michael Plavcan of the University of Arkansas. The fossils were analyzed in collaboration with Richard Kay of Duke University.

The fossil is housed at the National Museums of Kenya. The researchers published their findings in the Journal of Human Evolution.

The Kanapoi site in Kenya, east Africa [Credit: University of Arkansas]

"The discovery of Nanopithecus browni reaffirms Kenya's contribution to understanding the evolution and diversity of Pliocene fauna and the environmental contexts in which they lived," said Manthi. "Environmental changes during the Plio-Pleistocene may have influenced the present-day distribution of guenons."

Nanopithecus browni is named after the late Francis Brown of the University of Utah for his contribution to understanding the geological history of the Omo-Turkana Basin within which the Kanapoi site is located.

Author: Matt Mcgowan | Source: University of Arkansas [July 15, 2019]

Ancient DNA tells the story of the first herders and farmers in east Africa

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on May 30, 2019 / comment : 0 Africa, Anthropology, Genetics, Indigenous Cultures, Kenya, Tanzania

A collaborative study led by archaeologists, geneticists and museum curators is providing answers to previously unsolved questions about life in sub-Saharan Africa thousands of years ago. The results were published online in the journal Science.

Herders move goats through the Engaruka Basin in northern Tanzania's Rift Valley. Ancient DNA shows that this way of life spread to East Africa through multiple population movements [Credit: Katherine Grillo]

Researchers from North American, European and African institutions analyzed ancient DNA from 41 human skeletons curated in the National Museums of Kenya and Tanzania, and the Livingstone Museum in Zambia.

"The origins of food producers in East Africa have remained elusive because of gaps in the archaeological record," said co-first author Mary Prendergast, Ph.D., professor of anthropology and chair of humanities at Saint Louis University's campus in Madrid, Spain. "This study uses DNA to answer previously unresolvable questions about how people were moving and interacting," added Prendergast.

The research provides a look at the origins and movements of early African food producers. The first form of food production to spread through most of Africa was the herding of cattle, sheep and goats. This way of life continues to support millions of people living on the arid grasslands that cover much of sub-Saharan Africa.

Co-first author Mary Prendergast, Ph.D., is a professor of anthropology and chair of humanities at Saint Louis University's campus in Madrid, Spain [Credit: Mary Prendergast]

"Today, East Africa is one of the most genetically, linguistically, and culturally diverse places in the world," explains Elizabeth Sawchuk, Ph.D., a bioarchaeologist at Stony Brook University and co-first author of the study. "Our findings trace the roots of this mosaic back several millennia. Distinct peoples have coexisted in the Rift Valley for a very long time."

Previous archaeological research shows that the Great Rift Valley of Kenya and Tanzania was a key site for the transition from foraging to herding. Herders of livestock first appeared in northern Kenya around 5000 years ago, associated with elaborate monumental cemeteries, and then spread south into the Rift Valley, where Pastoral Neolithic cultures developed.

The new genetic results reveal that this spread of herding into Kenya and Tanzania involved groups with ancestry derived from northeast Africa, who appeared in East Africa and mixed with local foragers there between about 4500-3500 years ago. Previously, the origins and timing of these population shifts were unclear, and some archaeologists hypothesized that domestic animals spread through exchange networks, rather than by movement of people.

Cattle graze along Lake Manyara in the Rift Valley of Tanzania. Ancient DNA is shedding light on the earliest herders in East Africa [Credit: Mary Prendergast]

After around 3500 years ago, herders and foragers became genetically isolated in East Africa, even though they continued to live side by side. Archaeologists have hypothesized substantial interaction among foraging and herding groups, but the new results reveal that there were strong and persistent social barriers that lasted long after the initial encounters.

Another major genetic shift occurred during the Iron Age around 1200 years ago, with movement into the region of additional peoples from both northeastern and western Africa. These groups contributed to ancient ancestry profiles similar to those of many East Africans today. This genetic shift parallels two major cultural changes: farming and iron-working.

The study provided insight into the history of East Africa as an independent center of evolution of lactase persistence, which enables people to digest milk into adulthood. This genetic adaptation is found in high proportions among Kenyan and Tanzanian herders today.

Prendergast and Sawchuk published a companion piece on their work in The Conversation.

Author: Jeanette Grider | Source: Saint Louis University [May 30, 2019]

Tooth fossils fill 6-million-year-old gap in primate evolution

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on May 14, 2019 / comment : 0 Early Humans, Early Mammals, Fossils, Kenya, Palaeontology

Researchers have used fossilized teeth found near Lake Turkana in northwest Kenya to identify a new monkey species -- a discovery that helps fill a 6-million-year gap in primate evolution.

UNLV geoscientist Terry Spell and former master's student Dawn Reynoso are part of a research team that discovered primitive monkey teeth in Kenya. The fossils were determined to belong to a previously undiscovered species -- filling a 6-million-year void in primate evolution [Credit: Terry Spell/UNLV]

UNLV geoscientist Terry Spell and former master's student Dawn Reynoso were part of the international research team that discovered the species that lived 22 million years ago. Understanding the evolution of Old World monkeys is important because, along with the great apes and humans, they belong to the anthropoid group of primates -- primates that resemble humans.

According to Spell, the monkey fossil discovery grew out of a more extensive study of a section of sedimentary rocks in Kenya that contain a large number of different types of fossils, including several hundred mammal and reptile jaws, limbs, and teeth.

Previous studies had documented the early evolution of Old World monkeys using fossils dated at 19 million and 25 million years old, leaving a 6-million-year gap in the earliest record. However, the new fossil was determined to be 22 million years in age. Isotopic ages on the rocks were obtained in the Nevada Isotope Geochronology Laboratory on the UNLV campus.

"This adds to our understanding of the earliest evolutionary history of Old World monkeys, including changes in their diet with time to include more leaves," Spell said. "Monkeys originated at a time in the past when Africa and Arabia were together as an island continent. Plate tectonic motions pushed this land mass into the Eurasian land mass at 20 to 24 million years ago, and an exchange of animals and plants occurred. It is unclear if competition with newly introduced species or changing climate conditions drove changes in diet."

Scientists named the newly discovered monkey species Alophia ("without lophs") due to the lack of molar crests on its teeth -- a phenomenon that sets them apart from geologically younger monkey fossils.

Old World monkeys are the most successful living superfamily of nonhuman primates with a geographic distribution that is surpassed only by humans. The group occupies a wide spectrum of land to tree habitats and have a diverse range of diets. They evolved to develop a signature dental feature -- having two molar crests -- which to this day allows them to process a wide range of food types found in the varying environments of Africa and Asia.

The findings have been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Source: University of Nevada, Las Vegas [May 14, 2019]

Fossils found in museum drawer in Kenya belong to gigantic carnivore

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on April 18, 2019 / comment : 0 Early Mammals, Fossils, Kenya, Palaeontology

Paleontologists at Ohio University have discovered a new species of meat-eating mammal larger than any big cat stalking the world today. Larger than a polar bear, with a skull as large as that of a rhinoceros and enormous piercing canine teeth, this massive carnivore would have been an intimidating part of the eastern African ecosystems occupied by early apes and monkeys.

imbakubwa kutokaafrika, an extinct hyaenodont, with a skull as large as that of a rhinoceros and enormous piercing canine teeth, would have been an intimidating part of the eastern African ecosystems occupied by early apes and monkeys [Credit: Mauricio Anton]

In a new study published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, the researchers name Simbakubwa kutokaafrika, a gigantic carnivore known from most of its jaw, portions of its skull, and parts of its skeleton. The 22-million-year-old fossils were unearthed in Kenya decades ago as researchers canvassed the region searching for evidence of ancient apes.

Specimens were placed in a drawer at the National Museums of Kenya and not given a great deal of attention until Ohio University researchers Dr. Nancy Stevens and Dr. Matthew Borths rediscovered them, recognizing their significance.

"Opening a museum drawer, we saw a row of gigantic meat-eating teeth, clearly belonging to a species new to science," says study lead author Borths. Borths was a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow with Stevens in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at Ohio University when the research was conducted, and is now Curator of the Division of Fossil Primates at the Duke Lemur Center at Duke University.

Simbakubwa is Swahili for "big lion" because the animal was likely at the top of the food chain in Africa, as lions are in modern African ecosystems. Yet Simbakubwa was not closely related to big cats or any other mammalian carnivore alive today. Instead, the creature belonged to an extinct group of mammals called hyaenodonts.

Simbakubwa kutokaafrika, a gigantic carnivore known from most of its jaw, portions of its skull, and parts of its skeleton,  was a hyaenodont that was larger than a polar bear [Credit: Mauricio Anton]

Hyaenodonts were the first mammalian carnivores in Africa. For about 45 million years after the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs, hyaenodonts were the apex predators in Africa. Then, after millions of years of near-isolation, tectonic movements of the Earth's plates connected Africa with the northern continents, allowing floral and faunal exchange between landmasses. Around the time of Simbakubwa, the relatives of cats, hyenas, and dogs began to arrive in Africa from Eurasia.

As the relatives of cats and dogs were going south, the relatives of Simbakubwa were going north. "It's a fascinating time in biological history," Borths says. "Lineages that had never encountered each other begin to appear together in the fossil record."

The species name, kutokaafrika, is Swahili for "coming from Africa" because Simbakubwa is the oldest of the gigantic hyaenodonts, suggesting this lineage of giant carnivores likely originated on the African continent and moved northward to flourish for millions of years.

Ultimately, hyaenodonts worldwide went extinct. Global ecosystems were changing between 18 and 15 million years ago as grasslands replaced forests and new mammalian lineages diversified. "We don't know exactly what drove hyaenodonts to extinction, but ecosystems were changing quickly as the global climate became drier. The gigantic relatives of Simbakubwa were among the last hyaenodonts on the planet," remarks Borths.

"This is a pivotal fossil, demonstrating the significance of museum collections for understanding evolutionary history," notes Stevens, Professor in the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine at Ohio University and co-author of the study. "Simbakubwa is a window into a bygone era. As ecosystems shifted, a key predator disappeared, heralding Cenozoic faunal transitions that eventually led to the evolution of the modern African fauna."

Source: Ohio University [April 18, 2019]

The Serengeti-Mara squeeze – one of the world’s most iconic ecosystems under pressure

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on March 28, 2019 / comment : 0 Africa, Ecosystems, Kenya, Natural Heritage, Tanzania, Wildlife

The Serengeti-Mara ecosystem is one of the largest and most protected ecosystems on Earth, spanning 40,000 square kilometres and taking in the Serengeti National Park and Maasai Mara National Reserve in East Africa.

The migration routes of wildebeest are being disrupted [Credit: Thomas Morrison]

Every year a million wildebeest, half a million gazelle and 200,000 zebra make the perilous trek from the Serengeti national park in Tanzania to the Maasai Mara reserve in Kenya in their search for water and grazing land.

Now, an international team of scientists have discovered that increased human activity along the boundaries is having a detrimental impact on plants, animals, and soils.

The study looked at 40 years of data, and revealed that some boundary areas have seen a 400 per cent increase in human population over the past decade, while larger wildlife species in key areas in Kenya have declined by more than 75 per cent.

The study reveals how population growth and an influx of livestock in the buffer zones of the parks has squeezed the area available for migration of wildebeest, zebra and gazelles, causing them to spend more time grazing less nutritious grasses than they did in the past. This has reduced the frequency of natural fires, changing the vegetation and altering grazing opportunities for other wildlife in the core areas.

The study shows that the impacts are cascading down the food chain, favouring less palatable plants and altering the beneficial interactions between plants and microorganisms that enable the ecosystem to capture and utilize essential nutrients.

The effects could potentially make the ecosystem less resilient to future shocks such as drought or further climate change, the scientists warn.

The authors conclude that, even for reasonably well-protected areas like the Serengeti and Mara, alternative strategies may be needed that sustain the coexistence and livelihood of local people and wildlife in the landscapes surrounding protected areas. The current strategy of increasingly hard boundaries may be a major risk to both people and wildlife.

The study was led by the University of Groningen with collaborators at 11 institutions around the world, including the universities of York, Glasgow and Liverpool.

Dr Colin Beale, from the University of York's Department of Biology, said: "Protected areas across East Africa are under pressure from a wide range of threats. Our work shows that encroachment by people should be considered just as serious a challenge as better known issues such as poaching and climate change."

Dr Michiel Veldhuis, lead author of the study from the University of Groningen, said: "There is an urgent need to rethink how we manage the boundaries of protected areas to be able to conserve biodiversity. The future of the world's most iconic protected area and their associated human population may depend on it."

Dr Simon Mduma, Director of the Tanzanian Government's Wildlife Research Institute added: "These results come at the right time, as the Tanzanian government is now taking important steps to address these issues on a national level."

"This paper provides important scientific evidence of the far ranging consequences of the increased human pressures around the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem, information that is now urgently needed by policy makers and politicians."

The findings are published in the journal Science.

Source: University of York [March 28, 2019]