The Environments of the African Buffalo, with Different Selection Forces in Different Habitats

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Based on genetics and ecology, it is best to discern three subspecies of African buffalo, namely the northern savanna buffalo, the Cape buffalo and the forest buffalo. In honour of the oldest written reference to the buffalo by the Syrian geographer Ibn Fadl Allah al-Umari in 1347 CE, we propose the name Syncerus caffer umarii for the northern savanna buffalo, and maintain S. c. caffer for the Cape buffalo and S. c. nanus for the forest buffalo. We think it likely that the forest buffalo is a recent form of buffalo (about 150 kyr), derived from the northern savanna buffalo in the eastern part of its range, which underwent dwarfing (i.e. miniaturization) in the rainforest. We propose that the northern savanna buffalo, because of the high amount of genetic exchange with the forest buffalo, has many hallmarks of a hybrid subspecies that expanded its range due to the creation of the Guinea savanna and Sudan savanna by Iron Age agriculturalists. The Cape buffalo shows the highest number of food web interactions with other large mammals, while the dwarfed forest buffalo is very lightly embedded in its trophic web.