The functional ecology of grazing lawns: How grazers, termites, people, and fire shape HiP's savanna grassland mosaic

Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Title

Conserving Africa's mega-diversity in the anthropocene: The Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park story

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Place of Publication

Cambridge

School

School of Science

RAS ID

26076

Comments

Cromsigt, J. P. G. M., Veldhuis, M. P., Stock, W. D., le Roux, E., Gosling, C. M., & Archibald, S. (2017). The functional ecology of grazing lawns: How grazers, termites, people, and fire shape HiP's Savanna grassland Mosaic. In J. P. G. M. Cromsigt, S. Archibald & N. Owen-Smith (Eds.), Conserving Africa's mega-diversity in the anthropocene: The Hluhluwe-IMfolozi park story (pp. 135-160). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139382793.011

Abstract

The grasslands of Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park (HiP) are highly heterogeneous, both in terms of their species composition and their structure. Grazing lawns are a particularly striking feature of this heterogeneity (Figure 6 .1). These grazing lawns are short, repeatedly grazed grassland patches ranging in size from several square metres to a few hectares. These patches consist of grass species that grow in a prostrate form with a high leaf to stem ratio. Back in 1960, Vesey-Fitzgerald (1960) had already noted how the effects of grazing and trampling by various-sized ungulates maintained floodplain grasses in a short and actively growing condition and how bohor reedbuck Redunca redunca grazed on these 'short-grass lawns' in the Rukwa Valley in Tanzania. Olivier and Laurie (1974) used the term 'grazing lawn' for grasslands impacted by hippo grazing along the Mara river in the Maasai Mara National Park. Around the same time, smilar short grasslands promoted by heavy grazing and preferred by shortgrass grazers such as blue wildebeest Connochaetes taurinus, hippopotamus Hippopotamus amplzibius, and warthog Phacoclwerus africanus were described by others (Bell, 1971;Lock, 1972;Eltringhan1, 1974).

DOI

10.1017/9781139382793

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