LTREB: Multi-species Herbivore Exclusion Experiment in a Semi-arid Landscape in Laikipia, Kenya

9726642该项目将支持一项长期、大规模的因子实验，研究本地和国内食草动物对彼此的影响以及它们在东非共享的土地上的影响。已经建立了18个4公顷的地块，排除了(1)牛、(2)野生大型哺乳动物和(3)巨型食草动物(大象和长颈鹿)的6个重复组合。这是第一个排除牲畜和大型野生草食动物单独和联合影响的受控排除实验，为回答关于半干旱生态系统生态学的一系列基本和应用问题提供了独特的机会。这项研究是在肯尼亚中北部的姆帕拉研究中心进行的。它是一个基本完好的动物的家园，这是东非稀树草原林地的特征，包括大象、两种斑马、海角水牛、灵长类、瞪羚、长颈鹿、角马、羚羊、羚羊、狮子、豹、猎豹和许多其他种类的大小哺乳动物。这项提案将记录植被和非排除草食动物的补偿反应，与排除相关的潜在植被变化，木本植物入侵的方式和速度，以及在我看来这幅景观镶嵌的主要组织特征的营养丰富的空地的维护。这项研究将阐明生态学中的几个基本问题，包括在景观镶嵌中通过内生生态系统过程维持资源热点。

9726642 Young This project will support a long-term, large-scale factorial experiment on the effects of native and domestic herbivores on each other and on the land they share in East Africa. Eighteen 4-ha plots have already been established that exclude six replicated combinations of (1) cattle, (2) wild large mammals, and (3) mega-herbivores (elephants and giraffes). This is the first controlled exclusion experiment that factors out the separate and combined effects of livestock and large wild herbivores, providing a unique opportunity to answer a series of basic and applied questions about the ecology of semi-arid ecosystems. This research is being conducted at Mpala Research Centre in north central Kenya. It is home to a largely intact fauna that is characteristic of East African savanna woodlands, including elephants, two species of zebras, cape buffaloes, elands, gazelles, giraffes, hertebeests, oryxes, lions, leopards, cheetahs, and many other species of large and small mammals. This proposal will document compensatory responses of the vegetation and of non-excluded herbivores, underlying vegetation changes associated with exclusion, the mode and rate of encroachment by woody plants, and the maintenance of the nutrient-rich glades that appear to me major organizing features of this landscape mosaic. This research will elucidate several fundamental issues in ecology, including the maintenance of resource hot-spots by endogenous ecosystem processes in a landscape mosaic.