Lab
Megafauna Ecology and Conservation
Institution: Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden
About the lab
The Megafauna Ecology and Conservation (MEC) group, at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG), Yunnan, was formed in 2020 and is led by Professor Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz. MEC’s mission is to generate useful knowledge and translate it to the policy and practice domains for the conservation of Asia’s megafauna beyond the 21st century. We achieve this by conducting research on two broad topics: (1) unveiling megafauna’s impacts on ecosystem function through processes such as herbivory and seed dispersal, and (2) understanding the drivers of human-megafauna conflicts and promoting science-based strategies for coexistence. Our main focus species are Asian elephants and our geographical scope covers Southeast Asian and the Eastern Himalayas.
Featured research (2)
Megaherbivores exert strong top-down influence on the ecosystems they inhabit, yet little is known about the foraging impacts of Asian elephants ( Elephas maximus ) on the structure of Southeast Asia’s rainforests. Our goal was to document Asian elephants’ dietary composition, selectivity, and foraging impacts in a Sundaic rainforest and test whether these differed between habitats. We conducted controlled direct observations of five wild-born captive elephants feeding on six plant types (bamboo, grass, monocot herbs, palms, lianas, and trees) of different age 2 in two habitats (mature vs. early successional forest) in Krau, Peninsular Malaysia. Palms, trees, and lianas formed the bulk of the elephants’ diet. In the mature forest, elephants showed a strong preference for monocots (preference ratio, PR = 5.1), particularly large palms (PR = 5.4), while trees were negatively selected (PR = 0.14). Conversely, in early successional habitats, large tree saplings were positively selected (PR = 1.6). Elephants uprooted (30%) and broke the main stem (30%) of the dicot trees, mainly large saplings, that they handled. Tree saplings broken by elephants had an average diameter of 1.7 ± 1.1 cm (up to 7 cm), with breaks happening at 1.1 ± 0.5 m of height. We estimated that, in a year, an elephant could damage (i.e., either uproot or break) around 39,000 tree saplings if it fed entirely in mature forest, and almost double the number (73,000) if it fed solely in early successional habitats. Assuming a density of 0.05–0.18 elephants/km ² , elephant foraging could damage 0.2–0.6% of the tree sapling population per year. Slow growth rates of understory plants in mature forests could result in negative feedbacks, whereby elephants suppress palms, other monocots, and highly preferred tree species. Alternatively, elephants may initiate positive feedbacks by impeding succession along forest edges and in semi-open environments, thereby increasing the size of gaps and the availability of their preferred foodplants. Overall, our results show that Asian elephants act as ecological filters by suppressing the plants they prefer in Southeast Asia’s rainforests.
Humans have been part of the ecology of Southeast Asian rainforests for millennia. Understanding the hunting practices of forest-dwelling people is important for designing policies and practices aimed to protect both vulnerable wildlife populations and human communities. The Jahai people are forest-dwelling hunter-gatherers living in northern Peninsular Malaysia and believed to be direct descendants of the first anatomically modern humans that arrived to the Malay Peninsula at least 50,000 years ago. We conducted semi-structured interviews in three Jahai villages around the Royal Belum State Park, asking about their knowledge and hunting habits of 11 wild mammal species. Specifically, we asked whether they were able to identify and whether they hunted the 11 animals, their relative prey preference, perceived trends of the animals’ populations, and how they hunted and handled them. Our respondents were familiar with all the species in the survey. None of the 87 respondents claimed to hunt tigers and elephants. The most preferred and commonly hunted species were medium-sized arboreal animals (gibbons and giant squirrels, hunted by >80% of respondents), whereas larger and more dangerous animals (gaur, sun bear, and tapir) were only hunted by a minority (