气候变化领域集成服务门户(CCPortal): Elephant effects on treefall and logfall highlight the absence of megaherbivores in coarse woody debris conceptual frameworks

CCPortal

DOI	10.1016/j.foreco.2019.02.015
	Elephant effects on treefall and logfall highlight the absence of megaherbivores in coarse woody debris conceptual frameworks
	Landman M.; Mgqatsa N.; Cromsigt J.P.G.M.; Kerley G.I.H.
发表日期	2019
ISSN	0378-1127
起始页码	57
结束页码	62
卷号	438
英文摘要	Despite the importance of coarse woody debris (CWD) in woody ecosystems, conceptual frameworks of its dynamics currently exclude the role of the megaherbivores, focusing instead on the role of insects, disease, fire, wind and droughts. However, recognizing the ecological roles of the megaherbivores is one of the most urgent contemporary issues, particularly as their decline will likely have unanticipated outcomes at the ecosystem-level. Here we used sites with and without elephants in a semi-arid woodland ecosystem in South Africa to test whether elephants changed the quantitative and qualitative features of the CWD profile in relation to other wood producers. We show that elephants increased the abundance of CWD, influenced its quality by toppling mostly maturing trees, and changed the distribution of large woody items along gentle hillslopes. Surprisingly, and despite the recognized importance of both CWD and elephants for biodiversity, there is almost no published data on the role of elephants in shaping wood-living communities by changing fallen woody debris dynamics. Our study contributes towards developing a broader conceptual framework of CWD dynamics that includes the role of megaherbivores and provides a novel view of the ecological consequences of the loss of the Pleistocene megaherbivores. Our findings have important implications for CWD restoration efforts in transformed systems that previously supported megaherbivores. © 2019 Elsevier B.V.
英文关键词	Logs; Megafauna extinction; Restoration; Shifting baseline; Treefall
语种	英语
scopus关键词	Biodiversity; Debris; Dynamics; Forestry; Image reconstruction; Restoration; Coarse woody debris; Conceptual frameworks; Ecological consequences; Logs; Megafauna; Qualitative features; Shifting baseline; Treefall; Ecosystems; abundance; biodiversity; coarse woody debris; conceptual framework; drought; elephant; extinction; herbivore; Pleistocene; restoration ecology; semiarid region; treefall; woodland; Biodiversity; Dynamics; Ecosystems; Forestry; Logs; Restoration; South Africa; Elephantidae; Hexapoda
来源期刊	Forest Ecology and Management
文献类型	期刊论文
条目标识符	http://gcip.llas.ac.cn/handle/2XKMVOVA/156121
作者单位	Centre for African Conservation Ecology, Department of Zoology, PO Box 77000, Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth, 6031, South Africa; Department of Zoology and Entomology, PO Box 94, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, 6140, South Africa; Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Skogsmarksgränd, Umeå, SE-901 83, Sweden
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Landman M.,Mgqatsa N.,Cromsigt J.P.G.M.,et al. Elephant effects on treefall and logfall highlight the absence of megaherbivores in coarse woody debris conceptual frameworks[J],2019,438.
APA	Landman M.,Mgqatsa N.,Cromsigt J.P.G.M.,&Kerley G.I.H..(2019).Elephant effects on treefall and logfall highlight the absence of megaherbivores in coarse woody debris conceptual frameworks.Forest Ecology and Management,438.
MLA	Landman M.,et al."Elephant effects on treefall and logfall highlight the absence of megaherbivores in coarse woody debris conceptual frameworks".Forest Ecology and Management 438(2019).