Effect of mound-building termites on soil physicochemical properties and sugarcane stalk heights

Estimating the distribution and habitat suitability for aardvarks (Orycteropus afer) in Kruger National Park, South Africa

“…We observed only a weak negative association between aardvark habitat suitability and per cent mass of sand in soil, which likewise indicates a weak positive association with per cent mass of clay in this dataset given the strong inverse correlation of those components of soil texture. Soils with high clay content are associated with mound‐building termites (Jouquet et al, 2004; Mthimkhulu et al, 2019), and very sandy soils may not be suitable for aardvark burrows because of lack of cohesion. As we did not observe strong influences of these elements of soil texture, we conclude that the generalist nature of aardvarks and diversity of prey (likely many species of ants and termites) allow use at the scale of home range selection of a wide diversity of soils on this landscape.…”

“…We likewise predicted that soils with higher clay content would be positively associated with habitat use by aardvarks because of better texture for burrows, and, potentially, higher suitability for some termite species (e.g. Jouquet et al, 2004;Mthimkhulu et al, 2019). We further expected that increased density of large mammalian prey-and thus predators-would reduce habitat use by aardvarks.…”

“…Laundre & Reynolds, 1993), we predicted that soils with higher percentages of sand would be less suitable for aardvarks. Likewise, because of studies that suggested soils with higher clay are suitable for termites (Mthimkhulu et al, 2019), and recognition that high clay soils are important for mound-building termites and influence water retention (Jouquet et al, 2004), we predicted that soils with higher clay would be more suitable. We used the SOTOR-based soil parameter estimates for southern Africa (Baties, 2004) to estimate sand and clay percentages.…”

“…Indeed, most studies evaluating interactions of soil with ants, termites or aardvarks have focused on the influence of those species on local soil conditions (e.g. Louw et al, 2019; Mthimkhulu et al, 2019).…”