Abstract
This study aimed to establish seasonal movement and habitat selection patterns of African buffalo Syncerus caffer in relation to a detailed habitat map and according to seasonal changes in forage quality and quantity in the Savuti–Mababe–Linyanti ecosystem (Botswana). Two buffalo were collared in November 2011 and another in October 2012. All three buffalo had greater activities in the mopane–sandveld woodland mosaic during the wet season, which provided high-quality leafy grasses and ephemeral water for drinking, but moved to permanent water and reliable forage of various wetlands (swamps and floodplains) and riverine woodlands during the dry season. Wetlands had higher grass greenness, height and biomass than woodlands during the dry season. Buffalo had similar wet season concentration areas in the 2011–2012 and 2012–2013 wet seasons and similar dry season concentration areas over the 2012 and 2013 dry seasons. However, their dry season location of collaring in 2011 differed dramatically from their 2012 and 2013 dry season concentration areas, possibly because of the exceptionally high flood levels in 2011, which reduced accessibility to their usual dry season concentration areas. The study demonstrates that extremely large and heterogeneous landscapes are needed to conserve buffalo in sandy, dystrophic ecosystems with variable rainfall.Conservation implications: This study emphasises the importance of large spatial scale available for movement, which enables adaptation to changing conditions between years and seasons.
Highlights
African buffalo (Syncerus caffer) have a large distributional range across the savannas of Africa
The large absolute food demands of buffalo, which is a function of their large body size (Illius & Gordon 1987; Wilmshurst, Fryxell & Bergman 2000), combined with their inability to efficiently crop short grass constrain them to foraging in vegetation with sufficient height and biomass of forage (Codron et al 2008; Illius & Gordon 1987)
Collars were removed successfully after two successive years. Buffalo shifted their seasonal concentration areas between wetlands and woodlands (Figures 3 and 4) as an adaptive strategy to seasonal forage dynamics and water availability over the annual cycle, with BH1 and BH2 having a migratory strategy with little overlap between wet and dry season concentration areas
Summary
African buffalo (Syncerus caffer) have a large distributional range across the savannas of Africa Their habitat selection and foraging ecology have been relatively well studied (Landman & Kerley 2001; Macandza, Owen-Smith & Cross 2004; Sinclair 1979; Taylor 1985). Despite several studies on buffalo in the SMLE (Fynn et al 2014; Patterson 1972), detailed seasonal movement and habitat selection patterns of buffalo in the region have not been fully identified and established, especially seeing that no detailed habitat map has been available until this year (2016) Considering their non-specialised mouth anatomy and their large body. The objectives of this study were to (1) to examine seasonal movements and habitat selection of buffalo in the SMLE of northern Botswana and (2) to link seasonal movements to the quality and quantity (grass greenness, height and biomass) of vegetation in favoured seasonal regions of the landscape
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