Effects of fire on sward structure and grazing in western Serengeti, Tanzania

Hassan, Shombe N.; Rusch, Graciela M.; Hytteborn, Håkan; Skarpe, Christina; Kikula, Idris S.

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2028.2007.00831.x

Cited by 32 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…The tendency of grazers to be attracted to recently burnt area has been observed in different parts of African Savanna including Serengeti ecosystem (Rowe-Rowe 1982;Moe et al 1990;Wilsey 1996;Tomor and Owen-Smith 2002;Hassan et al 2007). The reduction of plant dead material and debris and the increased aboveground production a few months after fire causes an increase in leaf/stem ratio ), which correlates with high crude protein concentration (Prins and Beekman 1989).…”

Section: Patch Contrastsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous studies on habitat preference between burnt and non-burnt areas were carried out shortly after a single fire event both in the Serengeti ecosystem (McNaughton 1985;Wilsey 1996;Hassan et al 2007) and elsewhere (Moe et al 1990;Tomor and Owen-Smith 2002). Therefore, the effect of multiple fires and of long-term response of herbivores to burnt vegetation has not been documented.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fire-induced spatial habitat heterogeneity can influence the density and movements of wildlife in the landscape, causing individual herbivore species to exploit patches differently (Weins 1976). Hassan et al (2007) found that forage consumption in burnt and nonburnt patches in western Serengeti ecosystem shifted along the year, likely due to temporal changes in the trade-off between quantity and quality of the forage.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Studies in African savannas show that wild large herbivores prefer burnt areas to non-burnt areas (Moe et al 1990;Wilsey 1996;Tomor and Owen-Smith 2002). Moreover, studies of the East African Serengeti ecosystem show that herbivores can shift the preference between burnt and non-burnt vegetation (Wilsey 1996;Hassan et al 2007). This may result from the fact that foraging herbivores tend to concentrate in areas providing the optimal solution to the trade off between forage quality and quantity, that is, the maximum intake of digestible energy and nutrients per bite (Belovsky 1984;Wilmshurst et al 1995).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Email: hassanshombe@yahoo.co.uk Although burning in savanna is followed by a rapid increase in phytomass (McNaughton 1985), the quantity usually remains lower than in non-burnt grassland (BondLamberty et al 2004). Consequently, forage quantity (Spalinger and Hobbs 1992;Ginnett and Demment 1995;Hassan et al 2007) may influence selection between burnt and non-burnt patches. Fire can also enhance the quality of the phytomass available to herbivores through higher concentration of nitrogen, particularly in live leaf (Prins and Beekman 1989;Cook et al 1994), and higher ratio of new growth to residual low-quality material from earlier season (Everson 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fire history and management as determinant of patch selection by foraging herbivores in western Serengeti, Tanzania

Hassan

Rija

2011

International Journal of Biodiversity Science, Ecosystem Servic

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Although the use of fire as a management tool has increased during the past decades in East African savannas, there is insufficient knowledge about herbivores' utilization of areas with different fire history. We therefore examined large mammal herbivores' preference for patches that differed in fire history to test whether herbivores would non-randomly select patches according to availability. Our study area was the East African Serengeti ecosystem. Animals were recorded along transects at monthly intervals from May 2001 to April 2006, and data on the burnt and non-burnt areas along transects were extracted from existing fire maps. The prediction was tested using chi-square goodness-of-fit test, and selection ratio as a preference index for patch types. Our results show that African buffalo persistently occurred in non-burnt patches, whereas browsers (Giraffe and Kirk's dik-dik) and mixed feeders (Grant's gazelle and impala) were often seen in non-burnt patches but also used burnt patches. Grazer species (Thompson's gazelle, topi, wildebeest and Burchell's zebra) favoured patches burnt in the current year compared to non-burnt patches. For all species together, patches burnt repeatedly were least selected compared to those that were burnt only once in 3 years. The outcome of this study suggests that annual burning of the same patches is not optimal for biodiversity maintenance and ecosystem functioning.

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Section: Patch Contrastsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Fire history and management as determinant of patch selection by foraging herbivores in western Serengeti, Tanzania

Hassan

Rija

2011

International Journal of Biodiversity Science, Ecosystem Servic

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The ongoing development of a pragmatic and adaptive fire management policy in a large African savanna protected area

Wilgen

Govender

Smit

et al. 2014

Journal of Environmental Management

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This paper describes recent changes to the fire management policy of the 1.9 million ha Kruger National Park in South Africa. It provides a real-life example of adaptive learning in an environment where understanding is incomplete, but where management nonetheless has to proceed. The previous policy called for the application of fire to meet burnt area targets that were set for administrative subdivisions, and that were assessed at the scale of the entire park. This was problematic because the park is large and heterogeneous, and because sound ecological motivations that could link burning prescriptions to ecological objectives were missing. The new policy divides the park into five fire management zones on the basis of differences in mean annual rainfall, historic fire return periods, and geology. In addition, it proposes fire management actions designed to achieve specified ecological objectives in each zone, and includes fire-regime related thresholds and associated ecological outcomes against which to assess the effectiveness of management. The new policy is an improvement over previous iterations, but several challenges remain. Most important among these would be to continually improve the understanding of the effects of fire, and to develop frameworks for assessing the impacts of fire together with other ecosystem drivers that interact strongly with fire to influence the attainment of ecological objectives.

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The landscape-scale drivers of herbivore assemblage distribution on the central basalt plains of Kruger National Park

et al. 2019

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The distribution and abundance of herbivores in African savannas are constrained by interactions between abiotic and biotic factors. At the species-level, herbivores face trade-offs among foraging requirements, vegetation structure and the availability of surface water that change over spatial and temporal scales. Characterizing herbivore requirements is necessary for the management of the environment in which they occur, as conservation management interventions such as fencing and artificial water provision consequently have effects on how herbivores address these trade-offs. We tested the effects of environmental attributes on the probability of presence of herbivore functional types at different distances to water in the Satara section of Kruger National Park over the period of a year. Hypotheses about species’ relative distribution and abundance were developed through a literature review of forage and water availability constraints on feeding preference and body size of herbivore. We expected strong seasonal relationships between vegetation biomass and quality, and biomass of water-dependent herbivores with increasing distance to water. Our analyses of herbivore distribution across the region confirmed broad-scale descriptions of interactions between forage requirements and water availability across a set of species which differ in functional traits.

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Effects of fire on sward structure and grazing in western Serengeti, Tanzania

Cited by 32 publications

References 52 publications

Fire history and management as determinant of patch selection by foraging herbivores in western Serengeti, Tanzania

Fire history and management as determinant of patch selection by foraging herbivores in western Serengeti, Tanzania

The ongoing development of a pragmatic and adaptive fire management policy in a large African savanna protected area

The landscape-scale drivers of herbivore assemblage distribution on the central basalt plains of Kruger National Park

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