26
Lions making fewer zebra kills due to ‘chain reaction’ involving invasive ants
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2024
26 points (100.0% liked)
Environment
3926 readers
1 users here now
Environmental and ecological discussion, particularly of things like weather and other natural phenomena (especially if they're not breaking news).
See also our Nature and Gardening community for discussion centered around things like hiking, animals in their natural habitat, and gardening (urban or rural).
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
Scientists have found the spread of big-headed ants in east Africa sets off a situation leading to lions making fewer zebra kills.Prof Todd Palmer of the University of Florida, a co-author of the research, said the findings were a surprise.
The fewer kills appear to be due to the upending of a crucial relationship – between native ants and the trees in which they live, causing a loss of cover for lions.
Acacia ants protect whistling-thorn trees by biting and stinging elephants looking for a snack.
To unpick the wider ecological impacts Palmer and colleagues first studied a number of plots in Laikipia, Kenya, some where elephants were present, some where they were excluded.
The team found that when big-headed ants and elephants were present there was a drop in tree cover and a dramatic increase in visibility.
Saved 72% of original text.