Decline of the Mara woodlands the role of fire and elephants.
1986
Dublin, Holly. T.
The Masai Mara Game Reserve of Southwestern Kenya forms the North most extension of the Serengeti ecosystem and provide the critical dry season range for approximately 1.5 Million migratory wild beast over the past 100 years major ecological changes have occurred. This study focused on transition in the Mara woodlands from both historical and contemporary perspective. The study shows the factors responsible for the decline of the woodlands in 1960s and factors currently responsible for inhibiting woodland regeneration. In the 1880s Wild and domestic ungulate were decimated by the introduced diseases rinderpest, by 1930s the area was covered by dense woodland which began steadily decline several decades later. Unusually high rainfall, grass productivity and fire activity characterized the period of greatest decline (1961-1967). Finding from this study suggest that fire was the primary factor in the disappearance of woodlands, while elephants merely accelerated the rate of decline.
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