Rainfall extremes explain interannual shifts in timing and synchrony of calving in topi and warthog
2. Zero hunger
0106 biological sciences
0301 basic medicine
POPULATION-DYNAMICS
LARGE HERBIVORES
REPRODUCTIVE SYNCHRONY
PHACOCHOERUS-AETHIOPICUS
PARTURITION
drought
Breeding
Ungulates
15. Life on land
RED DEER
01 natural sciences
Floods
Droughts
VARIABILITY
03 medical and health sciences
Phenology
13. Climate action
INDIAN-OCEAN
Mara-Serengeti ecosystem
BIRTH SYNCHRONY
ungulates
GESTATION
DOI:
10.1007/s10144-009-0163-3
Publication Date:
2009-07-14T06:14:48Z
AUTHORS (5)
ABSTRACT
AbstractWe tested the hypothesis that ungulates time and synchronize births to match gestation and lactation with peak food availability and quality in seasonal environments, using ground counts of topi and warthog conducted over 174 months (July 1989–December 2003) in the Mara–Serengeti ecosystem. During this 15‐year period, 2,725 newborn and 45,574 adult female topi and 933 newborn and 7,831 adult warthogs were recorded. Births were distinctly synchronized in both species but far less so than in ungulates in temperate regions. Extreme droughts delayed onset and reduced synchrony of calving and natality rates but high rainfall advanced onset and increased synchrony of calving and natality rates in both species, supporting the seasonality hypothesis. Annual shifts in birth peaks were significantly negatively correlated with the preceding wet season rainfall. Varying the timing and synchrony of births and natality rates are widespread but little understood adaptations of ungulates to climatic extremes. Climate change heightens the need for advancing this understanding because increasing frequency and severity of droughts is likely to decouple phenology of breeding in seasonally breeding ungulates from that in their food plants. Similar studies of African ungulates are either extremely rare or non‐existent. New approaches to estimating the time of peak births and its confidence limits and the degree of synchrony of breeding are also presented.
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