LTREB: KLEE (Kenya Long-term Exclosure Experiment): Pattern and Process in an African Savanna

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This proposal is a request to support continuation of the Kenya Long-term Exclosure Experiment, which tests the effects of native and domestic herbivores on each other and on their shared landscape. Interactions between herbivores and their plants are affected by many factors, including rainfall, soil structure, nutrients, predators, and disease. In order to separate the effects of herbivores from these other influences, a large-scale experiment was started 8 years ago in a semi-arid ecosystem in Kenya. This experiment has demonstrated both the main effects of different types of herbivores and the effects of these organisms when considered in combination (their interactive effects). Over the next five years, this ongoing experiment will continue to examine the response of this ecosystem to herbivores over a time span that includes multi-year weather cycles; it will focus more specifically on teasing apart the complex relationships that exist between large herbivores and spatial variation in soils and in vegetation, and on examining the interactions that take place between trees and grasses when both are exposed to herbivory. Grassland ecosystems are important worldwide for both livestock and wildlife, and for the maintenance of biodiversity. Results from this study will contribute important insights to conservation biology, ecosystem management, and livestock production in one of the world's most important biomes. The study also involves scientists from several institutions in Kenya and the United States, many of whom are under-represented minorities and women. Results will be broadly communicated within the scientific community, to the public, and to stakeholders in the region.