Journal Article

African Elephants Adjust Speed in Response to Surface-Water Constraint on Foraging during the Dry-Season

Chamaillé-Jammes, Simon, Makuwe, E, Ecologie quantitative et évolutive des communautés [LBBE] ; Département écologie évolutive [LBBE] ; Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive - UMR 5558 (LBBE) ; Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (UCBL) ; Université de Lyon-Université de Lyon-VetAgro Sup - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur et de recherche en alimentation, santé animale, sciences agronomiques et de l'environnement (VAS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (UCBL) ; Université de Lyon-Université de Lyon-VetAgro Sup - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur et de recherche en alimentation, santé animale, sciences agronomiques et de l'environnement (VAS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive - UMR 5558 (LBBE) ; Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (UCBL) ; Université de Lyon-Université de Lyon-VetAgro Sup - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur et de recherche en alim

2013

Overview

Most organisms need to acquire various resources to survive and reproduce. Individuals should adjust their behavior to make optimal use of the landscape and limit the costs of trade-offs emerging from the use of these resources. Here we study how African elephants Loxodonta africana travel to foraging places between regular visits to waterholes. Elephant herds were tracked using GPS collars during two consecutive dry seasons in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. We segmented each individual movement track at each visit to water to define foraging trips, and then used trip-level statistics to build an understanding of movement strategies. Travel speed within these individually-consistent movement bouts was also analyzed to understand if speed was better linked to distance to water or progression in the trip over time. We found that elephants went further from water when drinking less often, which could result from a trade-off between drinking and foraging in less depleted, far from water, places. Speed increased towards the beginning and the end of the trips, and was also greater than observed during the wet season, suggesting that elephants were trying to save time. Numerous short trips traveled at greater speed, particularly when commuting to a different waterhole, was tentatively explained by the inability to drink at specific waterholes due to intra-specific interference. Unexpectedly elephants did not always minimize travel time by drinking at the closest waterhole, but the extra distance traveled remained never more than a few kilometers. Our results show how individuals may adjust movement behavior to deal with resource trade-offs at the landscape scale. We also highlight how behavioral context, here progression in the trip, may be more important than spatial context, here distance to water, in explaining animal movement patterns.

• Publisher: CCSD,Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Adaptation, Physiological / Agriculture / Animal behavior / Animals / Behavior, Animal - physiology / Biology / Collars / Commuting / Drinking water / Droughts / Dry season / Ecology / Ecosystem / Elephants / Elephants - physiology / Elephants - psychology / Environmental conditions / Forage / Herbivores / Life Sciences / Loxodonta africana / National parks / Parks & recreation areas / Population / Rainy season / River networks / Seasons / Spatio-Temporal Analysis / Surface water / Thirst - physiology / Tradeoffs / Travel / Veterinary Science / Water / Water - physiology / Zimbabwe