Anagaw Atickem

Addis Ababa University | AAU · Department of Zoological Sciences

Ethiopia is home to one of the richest and most unique assemblages of fauna and flora on the African continent. Contained within its borders are two major centers of endemism, the mesic Roof of Africa (also known as the Ethiopian Highlands) and the arid Horn of Africa, resulting from the country's varied topography and consequent geographic isolati...

Shade coffee farms in southwest Ethiopia are known to host high levels of avian biodiversity. However, these farms vary in terms of forest management, which affects their understory, mid-story, crown cover, and canopy closure, and hence their structural complexity. Such differences in vegetation structure can potentially affect the survival of spec...

African wolves (Canis lupaster) and Ethiopian wolves (C. simensis) occur often sympatrically across habitats in the Ethiopian Highlands, with recent studies finding evidence for interspecific competition. However, unlike the well-studied Ethiopian wolf, comparatively little is known about the ecology of the African wolf in the Ethiopian Highlands....

An investigation on human-elephant conflict was carried out in Chebra Churchura National Park Ethiopia between March, 2021 - 2022. Data was collected from 6 Park adjacent villages (25%) (Chebra, Seri, Yora, Keribela, Menta and Gudumu).Actual measurements of the damages and estimation of the monetary value of the damage at local market wascarried ou...

Estimating population densities is essential for understanding primate ecology and for guiding conservation efforts. Such information, however, is still scarce for many forest primates. The Djaffa Mountains guereza ( Colobus guereza gallarum ) is an Ethiopian endemic taxon for which information about their distribution and population size are missi...

A baseline for primate conservation is information on population density. Such evidence, however, is still scarce for tropical forest monkeys, who are under threat from habitat loss due to deforestation, land conversion for agriculture, climate change, illicit hunting, habitat fragmentations, logging, and other disturbances. Detailed studies on pop...

An investigation on population structure and ecology of the African elephants ( Loxodonta africana ) was carried out in Chebera Churchura National Park, Ethiopia during the wet and dry seasons of 2020 –2021. Sample counts using distance sampling of the African elephants were carried out in an area of 1, 410 km ² . The total population estimated was...

An endangered Ethiopian wolf has been declining because of climate change coupled with various anthropogenic disturbances, resulted in restricted geographic distribution. Knowledge of the effects of these stressors on animal distribution is vital to promoting conservation campaigns and implementing effective management strategies. We used the MaxEn...

Understanding the impacts of climate change, landscape composition, topographic attributes, and anthropogenic disturbance on wildlife distribution is critical to selecting prior conservation areas and to executing successful management plans. Habitat suitability mapping aims to predict species' ecological niches and ranges using these factors as pr...

The Ethiopian highlands is the largest Afroalpine habitat on the African continent contributing 80 % of the land above 3,000 masl on the continent. The Ethiopian highlands are part of Conservation International's Eastern Afro-Montane Biodiversity Hotspot supporting a large number of endemic mammal and bird species. In the highlands, rodent species...

Human settlement and agricultural activities restrict increasingly the range of large mammals in many cases contributing to declining numbers of ungulates. Here, we studied home range size and habitat selection of seven adult female mountain nyalas in the northern end of the Bale Mountains National Park (BMNP) equipped with Global Positioning Syste...

Swayne's hartebeest Alcelaphus buselaphus swaynei was once widely distributed in the Horn of Africa. By the early 20th century, however, it was extirpated across most of its range and is now limited to two relict populations in the Ethiopian Rift Valley and categorized as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. In this study, we estimated the size and gen...

Behavioral responses in wildlife due to human activities may often go unnoticed but have significant effects on population viability. This is a particular concern with endangered species characterized by small population sizes. From June 2016 to May 2017, we measured the effects of human activities on daily the activity budget and home range size o...

Abstract Ethiopian shade coffee plantations are well documented to be bird-friendly and act as refuges for disappearing tree species. The extent to which these plantations support mammal conservation, as well as mammal sensitivity to coffee intensification, remain little studied. We studied the distribution and diversity of mammals under three coff...

Ethiopian shade coffee plantations are well documented to be bird-friendly and act as refuges for disappearing tree species. The extent to which these plantations support mammal conservation, as well as mammal sensitivity to coffee intensification, remain little studied. We studied the distribution and diversity of mammals under three coffee manage...

Home range and activity patterns of animals are important elements for wildlife management and conservation practices. We examined seasonal home range and daily activity patterns of the endangered Swayne’s hartebeest (Alcelaphus buselaphus swaynei) in Maze National Park, Ethiopia. We tracked two groups of Swayne’s hartebeests in open grassland for...

Dietary responses to the habitat heterogeneity resulting from anthropogenic disturbance vary among primates. Some species alter their foraging strategy and continue to thrive in human-modified habitats while others are unable to modify their diets sufficiently to cope with such disturbance. Over a 12-mo period, we investigated the feeding ecology o...

The subspecific taxonomy and distribution of geladas (Theropithecus gelada Rüppell, 1835) remains uncertain. Recent molecular studies based on mitochondrial sequence data revealed a geographically structured, three‐deme population, suggesting that there are three evolutionary units of geladas. However, mitochondrial distributions do not always reco...

Humanwildlife conflict presents major challenges to both wildlife managers and rural livelihoods. Here, we investigated humanwildlife conflict in and around Senkele Swayne's Hartebeest Sanctuary (SSHS). We estimated the densities of wild animals within SSHS and conducted questionnaire interviews about livestock predation and crop raiding patterns w...

Background: Human settlement and agricultural activities restrict increasingly the range of large mammals in many cases contributing to declining numbers of ungulates. Here, we studied home range size and habitat selection of female mountain nyalas in the northern end of the Bale Mountains National Park (BMNP) (31 km²) surrounded by human settlemen...

Background: The availability of preferred habitats determines the spatial and temporal distribution of herbivores in savanna ecosystems. Understanding habitat preference of a targeted wildlife species is crucial for developing effective conservation strategies. Habitat preference of large grazers in connection to grass height and post-fire effect...

Background: The availability of preferred habitats determines the spatial and temporal distribution of herbivores in savanna ecosystems. Understanding habitat preference of a targeted wildlife species is crucial for developing effective conservation strategies. Habitat preference of large grazers in connection to grass height and post-fire effect h...

Background: The availability of preferred habitats determines the spatial and temporal distribution of herbivores in savanna ecosystems. Understanding habitat preference of a targeted wildlife species is crucial for developing effective conservation strategies. Habitat preference of large grazers in connection to grass height and post-fire effect h...

Background: The availability of preferred habitats determines the spatial and temporal distribution of herbivores in savanna ecosystems. Understanding habitat preference of a targeted wildlife species is crucial for developing effective conservation strategies. Habitat preference of large grazers in connection to grass height and post-fire effect h...

In our most recent study, we found that in Tanzania infection with Treponema pallidum (TP) subsp. pertenue (TPE) is present in four different monkey species. In order to gain information on the diversity and epidemiological spread of the infection in Tanzanian nonhuman primates (NHP), we identified two suitable candidate genes for multi-locus seque...

National Park (BSNP), accumulating 845 h of focal observation across 2952 feeding events. We also monitored rodent abundance and rodent trapping activity by local farmers who experience conflict with AWs. The AW diet consisted largely of rodents (22.0%), insects (24.8%), and goats and sheep (24.3%). Of the total rodents captured by farmers using lo...

Introduction The availability of preferred habitats determine the spatial and temporal distribution of herbivores in savanna ecosystems and is crucial for developing conservation strategies of targeted wildlife species. Habitat preference of large grazers in connection to grass height and post-fire effect has been debated for the last century. Here...

Shade coffee farming has been promotedas ameans of combining sustainable coffee production and biodiversity conservation. Supporting this idea, similar levels of diversity and abundance of birds have been found in shade coffee and natural forests. However, diversity and abundance are not always good indicators of habitat quality because there may b...

To cope with climate change and population growth, the continent urgently needs more home-grown researchers, argue Anagaw Atickem, Nils Chr. Stenseth and colleagues. To cope with climate change and population growth, the continent urgently needs more home-grown researchers, argue Anagaw Atickem, Nils Chr. Stenseth and colleagues. Students work at a...

Black-and-white colobus (Colobus guereza Rüppell, 1835) are arboreal Old World monkeys inhabiting large parts of the deciduous and evergreen forests of sub-Saharan Africa. Two of the eight subspecies of Colobus guereza are endemic to Ethiopia: C. g. gallarum and C. g. guereza. However, the validity of the Ethiopian taxa is debated and observed morp...

The large-bodied, terrestrial primates in the tribe Papionini are among the most intensely studied animals in the world, yet for some members of this tribe we know comparatively little about their evolutionary history and phylogeography. Geladas (Theropithecus gelada Rüppell, 1835), endemic primates of the Ethiopian highlands, are largely unstudied...

ML tree showing phylogenetic relationships among gelada and baboon haplotypes. Numbers at nodes refer to bootstrap values in %. (PDF)

Bayesian tree showing phylogenetic relationships among gelada and baboon haplotypes. Numbers at nodes refer to posterior probabilities. (PDF)

Best-fit models for protein-coding and non-protein-coding partitions for various gelada populations as obtained from jModeltest for the Bayesian skyline plots (BSPs). (PDF)

Divergence age estimates (Ma) and respective 95% Highest Posterior Density (HPD) intervals. (PDF)

Geographic provenance of gelada samples (decimal degrees), their mtDNA haplotypes (h-type), haplogroups (h-group) and GenBank Accession Numbers. * Sample from northern range but with central haplotype. (PDF)

Selection for the “best” population model. (PDF)

Results of the Automatic Barcode Gap Discovery (ABGD) analyses. (PDF)

Nguyen N, Fashing PJ, Burke RJ. Determining the conservation status of gelada monkeys: Distribution, abundance and phylogenetic relationships of Theropithecus gelada across the Ethiopian Highlands. 2016; Unpubl. Final report to Margot Marsh Biodiversity Foundation. (PDF)

Carnivore populations are declining globally due to range contraction, persecution and prey depletion. One consequence of these patterns is increased range and niche overlap with other carnivores, and thus an elevated potential for competitive exclusion. Here, we document competition between an endangered canid, the Ethiopian wolf (EW), and the new...

We captured 14 individual African wolves (Canis lupaster) a total of 16 times in the Ethiopian Highlands in April 2015 and March 2016 by using rubber-lined foothold traps and immobilized them with dexmedetomidine-ketamine. Traps were baited with sheep meat and surveyed every 2 h. Capture efficiency (number of captures per number of visits) was 0.94...

Abstract Background: The African wolf, for which we herein recognise Canis lupaster Hemprich and Ehrenberg, 1832 (Symbolae Physicae quae ex Itinere Africam Borealem er Asoam Occidentalem Decas Secunda. Berlin, 1833) as the valid species name (we consider the older name Canis anthus Cuvier, 1820 [Le Chacal de Sénégal, Femelle. In: Geoffroy St.-Hilai...

Mountain nyala Tragelaphus buxtoni is an endangered antelope endemic to Ethiopia currently confined to the Bale and Arsi mountains (Atickem et al. 2011, Brown 1969). No published material is available on safe immobilization of the species for research, disease control and translocation. Here we provide our experience on the efficiency of immobilisi...

Quantifying landscape connectivity and structural connectivity and relating both to measures of genetic variation is central in landscape genetics. Data from radio-telemetry and genetic analysis provide complementary pictures of the connectivity between populations and can in some cases give opposing results. This chapter focuses on landscape genet...

Here we present the first genomic data for the African wolf (Canis aureus lupaster) and conclusively demonstrate that it is a unique taxon and not a hybrid between other canids. These animals are commonly misclassified as golden jackals (Canis aureus) and have never been included in any large-scale studies of canid diversity and biogeography, or in...

The ‘human shield hypothesis’ describes the situation where prey species use humans as shield from natural predation. We tested the human shield hypothesis in a population of mountain nyala (Tragelaphus buxtoni) subjected to predation from the nocturnal spotted hyena (Crocuta Crocuta) in the Bale Mountains National Park, Ethiopia by radio-marking 1...

Livestock grazing is an increasing conservation challenge throughout protected wildlife areas in Africa. We report here on a negative correlation in abundance between cattle and the mountain nyala across seven study areas in the Bale Mountains of Ethiopia, and investigate if this can be explained by similarity in feeding ecology and spatial overlap...

Conservation scientists are increasingly focusing on the drivers of human behavior and on the implications of various sources of uncertainty for management decision making. Trophy hunting has been suggested as a conservation tool because it gives economic value to wildlife, but recent examples show that overharvesting is a substantial problem and t...

Comparisons of the behavior and ecology of primates living in intact and fragmented forest are critical to the development of conservation strategies for the many primate taxa threatened by habitat loss. From July 2009 to April 2010, we investigated the habitat use, ranging behavior, and diet of two groups of Boutourlini’s blue monkeys (Cercopithec...

Habitat fragmentation is an increasing threat to wildlife species across the globe and it has been predicted that future biodiversity will decrease rapidly without the intervention of scientifically-based management. In this study we have applied a landscape genetics approach to suggest a network design that will maintain connectivity among populat...

Until recently, the Bale monkey (Chlorocebus djamdjamensis), an arboreal primate endemic to the southern Ethiopian highlands, remained virtually unstudied, and its distribution pattern inadequately documented. To broaden our knowledge of the species' distribution and abundance, we carried out interviews with local people and total count surveys for...

Many species of large herbivores are declining in numbers as a consequence of direct exploitation or habitat loss. In the Ethiopian highlands, rapid human population growth has resulted in an expansion of human settlements and farmland, threatening many endemic species such as the mountain nyala Tragelaphus buxtoni. Despite being listed as an endan...

The Egyptian jackal (Canis aureus lupaster) has hitherto been considered a large, rare subspecies of the golden jackal (C. aureus). It has maintained its taxonomical status to date, despite studies demonstrating morphological similarities to the grey wolf (C. lupus). We have analyzed 2055 bp of mitochondrial DNA from C. a. lupaster and investigated...

In the Web Valley of the Bale Mountains National Park, the pastoral people suffer from livestock predation by wild carnivores. A total of 704 livestock were reported to be killed by wild carnivores over a 3-year period, causing a loss of potential revenue of 12 USD per year per household. Reported annual predation rates equated to 1.4% of the lives...

The Bale monkey Chlorocebus djamdjamensis is a little-known primate endemic to the south-eastern highlands of Ethiopia. From August 2007 to May 2008 we surveyed to determine the species' habitat preferences and population size in the Odobullu Forest and its range across the Bale Mountains. In Odobullu Forest a total of 136 transects of 1.8–3.0 km w...

Bale monkeys (Chlorocebus djamdjamensis) are little-known primates endemic to the forests of the Bale Massif and Hagere Selam regions of Ethiopia. From August 2007 to May 2008, we conducted the first ever study of the species’ behavior and ecology, focusing in particular on its diet, activity patterns, and ranging ecology in the Odobullu Forest. We...

The potential effects of the domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) on the Endangered Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis) through exploitative and interference competition were studied in the Web Valley of Bale Mountains national park between November 2001 and February 2003. All dogs were owned in the study area and no feral dogs were reported or observed du...