Biology subjects

Loveridge, A. J.

Publications and source records attributed to Loveridge, A. J..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Are all waterholes equal from a lion's view? Exploring the role of prey abundance and catchability in waterhole visitation patterns in a savannah ecosystem

Prey abundance and catchability shape the spatial ecology of predators. Predators can select habitats where prey are more abundant to maximize encounter rate with prey or habitats where prey are more catchable to maximize prey capture. These hypotheses are commonly referred to as prey-abundance and prey-catchability hypotheses. Although these hypotheses are often tested at the landscape scale, little is known about how between-patch variations in prey abundance and catchability determine the space use of predators. In many savannah ecosystems, large herbivores aggregate around waterholes, which become hotspots of prey and their selection by predators is classically interpreted as supporting the prey-abundance hypothesis. Here, we investigated whether between-waterhole variations in prey abundance and catchability influence the frequency and duration of lion visits to waterholes, testing the prey-abundance and prey-catchability hypotheses at the resource-patch scale. We combined datasets on (1) lion movements recorded from GPS collars deployed on 20 adult males and 16 adult females between 2002 and 2015, (2) prey abundance evaluated from long-term, regular monitoring of waterholes and (3) prey catchability evaluated from remote-sensing satellite imagery of vegetation cover around waterholes in Hwange National Park (Zimbabwe). Lions did not use all waterholes in their territory equally: there was a high variability in the frequency and duration of visits. Surprisingly, between-waterhole variations in prey abundance and catchability only slightly explained these variations in frequency - and even less in duration - of lion visits to waterholes. Yet, the frequency of lion visits to waterholes decreased with the number of waterholes within their territory, and male lions more frequently visited the waterholes surrounded by more open habitats. We discuss the limits of our work, but also the ecological mechanisms that may explain these findings. First, lions and their prey are involved in a shell-game that leads them to adopt unpredictable movement strategies. Second, lions have only access to a limited number of waterholes amongst which to distribute their hunting effort. Lastly, lions visit waterholes not only to hunt but also to interact with social mates and competitors. This work challenges the implicit assumption that all waterholes are the same from a lions view and calls for further studies investigating the drivers of the variability in lion visits at the resource-patch scale.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2020

A burning question: Can natural climate solutions and carbon financing save the lion from extinction?

Lions (Panthera leo) in Africa have lost nearly half their population in just the last two decades, and effective management of the protected areas (PAs) where lions live will cost an estimated USD >$1 B/year in new funding. We explore the potential for launching a fire management and habitat restoration carbon-financing program to help fill this PA management funding gap. We demonstrate how introducing early dry season fire management programs could produce potential carbon revenues (PCR) from either a single carbon-financing method (avoided emissions) or from multiple sequestration methods of USD $59.6-$655.9 M/year (at USD $5/ton) or USD $155.0 M-$1.7 B/year (at USD $13/ton). We highlight variable but significant PCR for PAs with the greatest potential for restoring lion numbers between USD $1.5-$44.4 M per PA. We suggest investing in lion-centric fire management programs to jump-start the United Nations Decade of Ecological Restoration and help preserve African lions across their range. SCIENCE FOR SOCIETYThe United Nations recently launched the Decade of Ecological Restoration in response to planet-wide land degradation. This study analyses the potential for savanna fire management programs to restore fire regimes that can generate new sources of revenue from carbon financing for chronically under-funded protected areas in Africa with lions, as lions are a key indicator of savanna ecosystem health. We estimated the amount of carbon saved by shifting fires that normally burn in the late dry season (and emit more carbon) to the early dry season (that accrue more carbon in the soil and woody vegetation). Based on current carbon market values we found substantial potential to eliminate or significantly reduce the $>1B annual funding gap needed to save the lion from extinction. Given additional benefits for nature and people from new savanna fire programs, we recommend integrated conservation and development projects direct more funding to some of the least developed countries with high biodiversity and support fire management programs in Africa.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2018

A century of decline: loss of genetic diversity in a southern African lion-conservation stronghold

AimThere is a dearth of evidence that determines the genetic diversity of populations contained within present-day protected areas compared with their historic state prior to large-scale species declines, making inferences about a species conservation genetic status difficult to assess. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the use of historic specimens to assess the change in genetic diversity over a defined spatial area.\n\nLocationLike other species, African lion populations (Panthera leo) are undergoing dramatic contractions in range and declines in numbers, motivating the identification of a number of lion conservation strongholds across East and southern Africa. We focus on one such stronghold, the Kavango-Zambezi transfrontier conservation area (KAZA) of Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.\n\nMethodsWe compare genetic diversity between historical museum specimens, collected during the late 19th and early 20th century, with samples from the modern extant population. We use 16 microsatellite markers and sequence 337 base pairs of the hypervariable control region (HVR1) of the mitochondrial genome. We use bootstrap resampling to allow for comparisons between the historic and modern data.\n\nResultsWe show that the genetic diversity of the modern population was reduced by 12% to 17%, with a reduction in allelic diversity of approximately 15%, compared to historic populations, in addition to having lost a number of mitochondrial haplotypes. We also identify reduced allelic diversity and a number of ghost alleles in the historical samples no longer present in the extant population.\n\nMain ConclusionsWe argue a rapid decline in allelic richness after 1895 suggests the erosion of genetic diversity coincides with the rise of a European colonial presence and the outbreak of rinderpest in the region. Our results support the need to improved connectivity between protected areas in order to prevent further loss of genetic diversity in the region.

zoology↗