An assessment of multiple drivers determining woody species composition and structure: a case study from the Kalahari, Botswana

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dc.contributor.authorMeyer, Thoralf
dc.contributor.authorHolloway, Paul
dc.contributor.authorChristiansen, Thomas B.
dc.contributor.authorMiller, Jennifer A.
dc.contributor.authorD’Odorico, Paolo
dc.contributor.authorOkin, Gregory S.
dc.contributor.funderNational Science Foundationen
dc.date.accessioned2019-10-06T20:37:42Z
dc.date.available2019-10-06T20:37:42Z
dc.date.issued2019-08-05
dc.description.abstractSavannas are extremely important socio-economic landscapes, with pastoralist societies relying on these ecosystems to sustain their livelihoods and economy. Globally, there is an increase of woody vegetation in these ecosystems, degrading the potential of these multi-functional landscapes to sustain societies and wildlife. Several mechanisms have been invoked to explain the processes responsible for woody vegetation composition; however, these are often investigated separately at scales not best suited to land-managers, thereby impeding the evaluation of their relative importance. We ran six transects at 15 sites along the Kalahari transect, collecting data on species identity, diversity, and abundance. We used Poisson and Tobit regression models to investigate the relationship among woody vegetation, precipitation, grazing, borehole density, and fire. We identified 44 species across 78 transects, with the highest species richness and abundance occurring at Kuke (middle of the rainfall gradient). Precipitation was the most important environmental variable across all species and various morphological groups, while increased borehole density and livestock resulted in lower bipinnate species abundance, contradicting the consensus that these managed features increase the presence of such species. Rotating cattle between boreholes subsequently reduces the impact of trampling and grazing on the soil and maintains and/or reduces woody vegetation abundance.en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionPublished Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.articleid122en
dc.identifier.citationMeyer, T., Holloway, P., Christiansen, T. B., Miller, J. A., D’Odorico, P. and Okin, G. S. (2019) 'An Assessment of Multiple Drivers Determining Woody Species Composition and Structure: A Case Study from the Kalahari, Botswana', Land, 8(8), 122 (14pp). DOI: 10.3390/land8080122en
dc.identifier.doi10.3390/land8080122en
dc.identifier.eissn2073-445X
dc.identifier.endpage14en
dc.identifier.issued8en
dc.identifier.journaltitleLanden
dc.identifier.startpage1en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/8694
dc.identifier.volume8en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherMDPIen
dc.relation.projectinfo:eu-repo/grantAgreement/NSF/Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences::Division of Social and Economic Sciences/0962198/US/Spatial Autocorrelation and Species Distribution Models: Analyzing the Effects of Spatial Structure, Sampling Strategy, Statistical Methods, and Scale Using Simulated Data/en
dc.relation.projectinfo:eu-repo/grantAgreement/NSF/Directorate for Biological Sciences::Division of Environmental Biology/0717448/US/Collaborative Research: Distribution and Dynamics of Belowground Carbon in Savannas/en
dc.relation.urihttps://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/8/8/122/htm
dc.rights© The Author(s) 2019. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly citeden
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/en
dc.subjectConservationen
dc.subjectFireen
dc.subjectGrazingen
dc.subjectSavannaen
dc.subjectWoody vegetationen
dc.titleAn assessment of multiple drivers determining woody species composition and structure: a case study from the Kalahari, Botswanaen
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
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