‘Explorer elephants’ in transfrontier conservation area offer solution to tree damage

Elephants are known to be “ecosystem engineers,” altering habitats to suit their own needs, but this sometimes comes at a cost to other species. Hedging, or stem snapping, is the term used to describe how elephants (Loxodonta africana) reduce dominant trees to low-level shrubs, bringing the trees’ leaves within easy reach of mother-and-calf herds while depriving other animals of homes and food. “They [elephant bulls] do work an area over time [and] reduce all the trees to a certain sort of height,” says Tim O’Connor, lead author of a recent study that shines a light on the hedging of dominant hardwood trees known as mopanes (Colophospermum mopane) in Zimbabwe’s Gonarezhou National Park, in the southeastern corner of the country. “They snap the stems; [the trees] grow as a thicker, smaller plant and therefore give it a hedge appearance.” Mopane hedging by hungry, constrained elephants has been well documented in other national parks in Botswana, South Africa and Zambia. Chilojo Cliffs Gonarezhou Zimbabwe. Image by Richard Droker via Flickr ((CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Blue-Tailed Skink Mabuya Quinquetaenia Gonarezhou Zimbabwe. Image by Brian Gratwicke via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) At the study site in the north of Gonarezhou, near to where the Runde River flows beneath ancient sandstone cliffs, O’Connor and colleagues found that elephants had snapped more than half of all the trees measuring some 10 meters (33 feet) in height. Although the canopy volume of the coppiced mopanes remained healthy, it severely compromised living conditions for animals that make their homes…This article was originally published on Mongabay