How do African elephants utilize the landscape during wet season? A habitat connectivity analysis for Sioma Ngwezi landscape in Zambia

Abstract

1. The influence of environmental factors on the distribution and persistence of African elephants (Loxodonta africana) is pertinent to policy makers and managers to formulate balanced plans for different land-use types.2. The study focuses on movement of elephants and how they utilize foraging areas in Sioma Ngwezi landscape in Zambia by answering the following questions: (1) Which environmental variables and land-cover class predict the movement of elephants during the wet season in Sioma Ngwezi landscape? (2) What is the wet season suitable habitat for elephants in Sioma Ngwezi landscape? (3) What are the major wet season movement corridors for elephants in Sioma Ngwezi landscape? 3. We used GPS telemetry data from the collared elephants to assess habitat connectivity. Maximum entropy (MaxEnt) and linkage mapper were the tools used to predict habitat suitability, movement corridors, and barriers in the landscape during the wet season.4. The study identified elevation, land cover, and NDVI as the most important environmental predictors that modify the dispersal of elephants in the landscape during the wet season. Additionally, a total of 36 potential wet season corridors were identified connecting 15 core areas mainly used for foraging and protection from poachers in the landscape. Of these, 24 corridors were highly utilized and are suggested as priority corridors for elephant movement in the landscape.5. The identified wet season habitats and functional corridors may help to combat elephant poaching by patrolling areas with high relative probability of elephant presence. The findings may also help abate human-elephant conflict such as cropraiding by managing identified corridors that run into agriculture zones in the game management area.

A Socio-Ecological Approach to Understanding How Land Use Challenges Human-Elephant Coexistence in Northern Tanzania

“…At this time, elephants raid farmlands for nutritious and palatable crops despite the availability of natural forage resources within protected areas [65,66]. Additionally, we observed spatially clustered HEC incident areas, mainly close to protected area boundaries in the EWMA, as has been widely reported across Africa's protected areas [47,49,67,68]. Our HEC hotspots in Ngereyani and Tingatinga villages reflect the proximity of vast plantations of maize and beans as well as bushlands, a mixed tree and grass system dominating the southern parts of the EWMA, which represent an attractive habitat for elephants and potentially increased the HEC incidences in the area.…”

Home range and space use by African elephants (Loxodonta africana) in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe

“…For instance, in the southern hemisphere, the north‐facing slope receives more sunlight than the rest of the slopes. Consequently, north‐facing slope and therefore support relatively high vegetation diversity amount through enhanced temperature and soil water regimes (Chibeya, 2019; Hirzel and Le Lay, 2008). On the other hand, slope has direct effect on elephant movement through its frictional tendencies and indirectly through its influence on resource availability.…”

“…Also, studies have assessed movement metrics as a function of environmental factors across time (Gara, 2014; Ngene et al, 2009; Wall et al, 2014). Other studies have estimated elephant home ranges using a number approaches such as time‐density function (Gara, 2014; Wall et al, 2013), minimum convex hull (MCP) (Ngene et al, 2017), kernel density methods (Chibeya, 2019; Ngene et al, 2017), Brownian bridge movement models (BBMM) (Wall et al, 2013), local convex hull (LoCoH) (Getz & Wilmers, 2004) and its derivative adaptive‐local convex hull (a‐LoCoH) (Getz et al, 2007). These studies have provided valuable knowledge on the behaviour and ranging methods of African elephants.…”

Using camera trap bycatch data to assess habitat use and the influence of human activity on African elephants (Loxodonta africana) in Kasungu National Park, Malawi

“…Spatial variability in vegetation cover and habitat quality can affect elephant distribution (Harris et al 2008;Chibeya et al 2021). We used the MODIS Terra Vegetation Continuous Fields dataset (MOD44B; Dimiceli et al 2015) to measure the percentage cover of tree-vegetation (henceforth tree cover), as a metric for woody vegetation.…”