Grazing herbivores reduce herbaceous biomass and fire activity across African savannas,Ecology Letters

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Grazing herbivores reduce herbaceous biomass and fire activity across African savannas
Ecology Letters ( IF 7.6 ) Pub Date : 2024-06-10 , DOI: 10.1111/ele.14450
Allison Tyler Karp _{1,

2} , Sally E Koerner ₃ , Gareth P Hempson _{4,

5} , Joel O Abraham ₆ , T Michael Anderson ₇ , William J Bond ₈ , Deron E Burkepile _{9,

10} , Elizabeth N Fillion ₁ , Jacob R Goheen _{11,

12} , Jennifer A Guyton ₆ , Tyler R Kartzinel _{13,

14} , Duncan M Kimuyu _{12,

15} , Neha Mohanbabu _{16,

17} , Todd M Palmer _{8,

18} , Lauren M Porensky ₁₉ , Robert M Pringle ₆ , Mark E Ritchie ₂₀ , Melinda D Smith ₂₁ , Dave I Thompson _{5,

10} , Truman P Young _{12,

22} , A Carla Staver _{1,

23}

Affiliation

Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.
Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA.
Department of Biology, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, North Carolina, USA.
School of Biodiversity, One Health and Veterinary Medicine, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK.
Centre for African Ecology, School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA.
Department of Biology, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA.
Biological Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.
Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, USA.
South African Environmental Observation Network, Ndlovu Node, Scientific Services, Kruger National Park, Phalaborwa, South Africa.
Department of Zoology and Physiology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming, USA.
Mpala Research Centre, Nanyuki, Kenya.
Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA.
Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA.
Department of Natural Resources, Karatina University, Karatina, Kenya.
Department of Biology, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, USA.
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA.
Department of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA.
Rangeland Resources and Systems Research Unit, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.
Department of Wildland Resources, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, USA.
Department of Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.
Department of Plant Sciences, University of California Davis, Davis, California, USA.
Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.

Fire and herbivory interact to alter ecosystems and carbon cycling. In savannas, herbivores can reduce fire activity by removing grass biomass, but the size of these effects and what regulates them remain uncertain. To examine grazing effects on fuels and fire regimes across African savannas, we combined data from herbivore exclosure experiments with remotely sensed data on fire activity and herbivore density. We show that, broadly across African savannas, grazing herbivores substantially reduce both herbaceous biomass and fire activity. The size of these effects was strongly associated with grazing herbivore densities, and surprisingly, was mostly consistent across different environments. A one-zebra increase in herbivore biomass density (~100 kg/km² of metabolic biomass) resulted in a ~53 kg/ha reduction in standing herbaceous biomass and a ~0.43 percentage point reduction in burned area. Our results indicate that fire models can be improved by incorporating grazing effects on grass biomass.

中文翻译：

放牧食草动物减少了非洲稀树草原的草本生物量和火灾活动

火和食草相互作用，改变生态系统和碳循环。在稀树草原上，食草动物可以通过去除草生物量来减少火灾活动，但这些影响的大小以及调节它们的因素仍然不确定。为了研究放牧对非洲稀树草原燃料和火灾状况的影响，我们将草食动物排除实验的数据与火灾活动和草食动物密度的遥感数据结合起来。我们发现，在非洲大草原上，放牧食草动物大大减少了草本生物量和火灾活动。这些影响的大小与食草动物的放牧密度密切相关，令人惊讶的是，在不同的环境中，这些影响大多是一致的。草食动物生物量密度（代谢生物量约 100 kg/km ² ）增加一斑马，导致直立草本生物量减少约 53 kg/ha，烧毁面积减少约 0.43 个百分点。我们的结果表明，可以通过纳入放牧对草生物量的影响来改进火灾模型。

更新日期：2024-06-11

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