Hervé Fritz

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Head of Department at CNRS & Nelson Mandela University

Predation exerts a strong selective pressure on prey species, shaping their behavioral adaptations. While proactive strategies such as habitat selection and increased vigilance allow prey to anticipate threats, reactive responses, including immediate flight or retaliation, occur on direct detection of a predator. Baboons (Papio spp.) encounter vari...

Many pathogens have the capacity to infect multiple hosts. Multi-species epidemiological systems are characterized by populations that interact and perform different functions in pathogen transmission and maintenance. This study investigated the epidemiological dynamics of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) virus in cattle and goats and their respective...

Previous work has focused on how prey availability and fear of people affect apex predators' habitat selection, but few have studied the effects of intraguild interactions. Patterns of co‐occupancy between sympatric carnivores have started to be well described, but understanding the underlying habitat selection processes is lacking. We evaluated wh...

African elephants (Loxodonta africana), in conjunction with the community of browser species, exert substantial top-down control over the woody vegetation in savannas by utilising large amounts of plant biomass, as well as through non-consumptive effects. However, how much browsers affect the pattern of proportional growth between different tree co...

Empirical testing of energy maximization models has been used to clarify the drivers of resource partitioning among large herbivores. Most studies, however, have not considered that predictions of optimal diet depend on the temporal scale of maximization. This omission can hinder the effectiveness of optimality principles in elucidating animal dist...

Research in protected areas (PAs) is often dominated by scientists from outside the conservation agencies managing them. This can potentially lead to misalignment with local needs, insensitivity to the local context and a lack of investment in and use of local expertise. These issues often arise when international researchers work in another countr...

Animals need to adjust their diel activity patterns to fulfil their energy and social requirements whilst avoiding predation risk and environmental constraints. The chacma baboon ( Papio ursinus ) is a highly adjustable primate occupying a variety of habitats in southern Africa, yet little is known about its diel activity patterns in different envi...

Species interactions occurring in ecological communities are often represented as networks. The structure of these networks is thought to be linked to species’ interaction niches (or Eltonian niches), which are intimately related to the notion of trait matching, which posits that a species interacts preferentially with partners whose traits are com...

Understanding what influences species and trait composition is critical for predicting changes in communities driven by landscape transformation. We explored how life‐history traits are associated with the persistence of mammal species in human‐dominated habitats within the Garden Route Biosphere Reserve, South Africa. We combined data from a camer...

Monitoring population trends is pivotal to effective wildlife conservation and management. However, wildlife managers often face many challenges when analyzing time series of census data due to heterogeneities in sampling methodology, strategy, or frequency. We present a three‐step method for modeling trends from time series of count data obtained...

Understanding wildlife behavioural responses to the anthropogenic variables is paramount to address human-wildlife interactions issues and promoting conservation in human-dominated landscapes. This study, conducted in 2019, focused on a troop of chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) named Madiba’s troop which inhabits George Nelson Mandela University camp...

Current theory predicts that plains zebra ( Equus quagga ) populations should be resource‐limited. Long‐term, detailed work in the Hwange ecosystem (Zimbabwe) on zebras and all their major predators provides empirical data to test this on a population that has been at a low density for at least 2 decades and is largely naturally regulated. Informat...

The formation of mixed-species groups (MSGs) (also called heterospecific or polyspecific groups) is often considered an anti-predator strategy used in response to an increased predation risk. Recent studies performed in savanna ecosystems in Africa have demonstrated an increased formation of ungulate MSGs in higher predation risk areas. Nevertheles...

Accurate information on wildlife occurrence in anthropogenic landscapes is essential to develop effective conservation measures. Monitoring multiple mammal species in heterogeneous landscapes can be challenging because of the diversity of land‐uses and species behaviors. Therefore, different monitoring methods are better adapted to different contex...

Mammals in arid zones have to trade off thermal stress, predation pressure, and time spent foraging in a complex thermal landscape. We quantified the relationship between the environmental heat load and activity of a mammal community in the hot, arid Kalahari Desert. We deployed miniature black globe thermometers within the existing Snapshot Safari...

Interspecific interactions can influence species' activity and movement patterns. In particular, species may avoid or attract each other through reactive responses in space and/or time. However, data and methods to study such reactive interactions have remained scarce and were generally limited to two interacting species. At this time, the deployme...

Humans have shaped the environment through landscape transformation, disturbance, and resource exploitation, leading to major habitat modification and fragmentation. Mammal species are massively threatened by these changes and their diversity implies various responses to human disturbance. It is essential to understand the conditions for their pers...

The interplay between facultative scavenging and predation has gained interest in the last decade. The prevalence of scavenging induced by the availability of large carcasses may modify predator density or behaviour, potentially affecting prey. In contrast to behavioural mechanisms through which scavenging affects predation, the demographic effects...

Anthropization processes affect wildlife feeding behaviours due to changes in resource availability related to land use and land cover change. To better understand the ecological responses of wildlife towards anthropogenic change, it is essential to evaluate whether human land use, characterized by high human-modified food availability, has an impa...

Senescence is the irreversible decline in physiological functioning and survival with age. While this phenomenon has been studied in a range of different taxa, including seabirds, it has seldom been assessed for both sexes of monomorphic species, and in conservation contexts. Here, we studied the effect of age and sex on the foraging trip character...

Faecal glucocorticoid metabolites (fGCMs) are a relevant means of non-invasively assessing adrenocortical activity and thus, a key physiological stress response in wildlife populations. However, the widespread use of fGCMs as a stress-related biomarker in conservation biology is often hampered by the logistical challenge of storing collected faecal...

Intensive management is frequently required in fenced wildlife areas to reduce deleterious effects of isolation. Decisions on how best to manage such wildlife are ideally informed by regular and reliable estimates of spatiotemporal fluctuations in population size and structure. However, even in small, fenced areas, it is difficult and costly to reg...

In South Africa, chacma baboons (Papio hamadryas ursinus) living near peri-urban areas may forage on anthropogenic food. Baboons have been recorded to damage crops, scatter waste from trash bins, and damage homes. A number of methods have been tested over the past 20 years to solve these problems, but none proved successful over the long-term or in...

Although research has been done in order to understand the impact of urban development on avian diversity, it mainly focused on taxonomic diversity. Here we aimed to assess biodiversity targeting beyond species richness since this has the potential to inform the conservation of healthy functioning ecosystem. We explored how functional and phylogene...

The breeding range of the Cape Gannet Morus capensis currently extends to six of the ten islands formerly utilised by this species. The Cape Gannet is classified as an endangered species with a rapidly declining population. Since the mid-1950s, the global population has declined by 51% due to multiple causes, including egg predation by the Kelp Gul...

Background and Research Aims Myths and beliefs shape the relationships that people have with different species. They lead to the protection of revered species and the persecution of negatively viewed species. In some instances, people fear these species resulting in a failure to tap into their benefits. This study investigates the possibility of us...

It is still not well established whether plant chemical and physical defence traits can be simultaneously induced in savanna trees and how this would affect plant nutritional quality. Here, we use a long‐term mammalian herbivore exclosure experiment in a dystrophic semi‐arid African savanna to test how chemical (condensed tannins [CTs] and total po...

Seabird populations experience predation that can impact their breeding density and breeding success. The Cape gannet Morus capensis is endemic to the Benguela upwelling ecosystem and is classified as Endangered by the IUCN. They are affected by several threats, including predation by the Cape fur seal Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus . Many fledgli...

The Overberg area, Western Cape, South Africa is highly suitable for agricultural practices and has subsequently been severely transformed over the last four centuries. This has created a novel habitat for many wildlife species. The objective of this study was to determine the forage use of five antelope species and thereby assess their level of an...

Black-backed jackals (Canis mesomelas) are opportunistic mesopredators occupying a variety of ecosystems across South Africa (SA). They can move between protected areas (PAs) and surrounding human-dominated landscapes where they are prone to conflict with wildlife and livestock farmers and subsequently face high persecution rates. However, it remai...

Throughout much of the Quaternary, lower sea levels in the southern Cape of South Africa exposed a different landscape to what we see today, the Palaeo-Agulhas Plain (PAP). The PAP was dominated by large-bodied and gregarious grazing species contrasting with the small-bodied predominantly solitary species we find in the region today. The distributi...

Aim Despite the importance of termite mounds in plant species’ taxonomic diversity, no study has quantified the effect of termite mounds on woody plant species’ phylogenetic diversity and phyloendemism. In order to understand how mounds influence phylogenetic diversity (PD), we had two objectives: (i) to determine the influence of termite mounds on...

Owing to costly, labour intensive or timeconsuming survey methods there is a lack of robust population data for cryptic carnivores in many areas. Population data are important for the management of these species in enclosed, fenced protected areas as species’ natural migratory patterns are restricted. In this study we used three different camera tr...

When in 2010 the world's governments pledged to increase protected area coverage to 17% of the world's land surface, several Central African countries had already set aside 25% of their northern savannas for conservation. To evaluate the effectiveness of this commitment, we analyzed the results of 68 multispecies surveys conducted in the seven main...

Questions Species defined as ecosystem engineers (e.g. elephant) are able to strongly shape their habitat. In African savannas, elephants have often been shown to reduce woody plant abundance and diversity. However, recent studies highlight more complex elephant-induced effects on vegetation. Here, we assessed if long-term high elephant densities (...

Wetlands in southern Africa. The formation and ecology of pans in southern Africa. Waterbird communities and breeding in the pan ecosystem. The pan ecosystem in western Zimbabwe - protected areas and nonprotected areas. Trends and drivers of waterbird communities. Threats to waterbirds inside and outside protected areas. - Avian Influenza Viru...

Southern Africa has a diverse large carnivore guild. When this large carnivore guild is confined to fenced protected areas, the degree of intraguild competition may increase. Dietary overlap is a notable point of competition and can have considerable effects on lower trophic levels. We considered the prey preferences, dietary overlap, and dietary n...

Wildlife trade imposes direct and indirect negative impacts on the environment but particularly through the continual introduction of species beyond their native range. The high demand for various ornamental plant species at global scale, combined with modern and more efficient modes of trade (i.e., e-commerce) highlight the horticultural trade ind...

Southern Africa has a diverse large carnivore guild. When this large carnivore guild is confined to small, fenced, protected areas, the degree of intraguild competition increases. Dietary overlap is a notable point of competition and can have considerable effects on subordinate trophic levels. We considered the prey preferences and dietary overlap...

Urbanization poses serious threats to biodiversity in many regions of the developing world. Understanding the factors that influence bird communities at the local and landscape level is important to guide urban planning efforts toward enhancing bird diversity. How bird species richness and diversity vary and the environmental factors that optimize...

In semi-arid savannas, the availability of surface water constrains movements and space-use of wild animals. To accurately model their movements in relation to water selection at a landscape scale, innovative methods have to be developed to i) better discriminate water bodies in space while characterizing their seasonal occurrences and ii) integrat...

In social species, the transmission and maintenance of infectious diseases depend not only on the contact patterns among individuals within groups but also on the interactions between groups. In southern Africa, the Cape buffalo (Syncerus caffer caffer) is a vector for many pathogens that can infect sympatric livestock. Whilst intra-group contact p...

Herbivore distribution throughout Africa is strongly linked to mean annual precipitation. We use that relationship to predict functional group composition of herbivore communities during the last glacial maximum (ca. 21 ka) on the now submerged Palaeo-Agulhas Plain (PAP), South Africa. We used metabolic large herbivore biomass (MLHB) from 39 South...

This study evaluates the relative contribution of reproduction-based life history traits and diet to the population trends in waterbirds from southern Africa. Life history traits (clutch size, incubation period, fledging time, body mass and generation length), diet (prey weight, body lengths and number of taxa represented in its diet (NTD)) and con...

Management and conservation actions are only as effective as our ability to monitor and assess biodiversity trends. We therefore compared the cost efficiency and effectiveness of several standard methods to assess mammal diversity using camera traps, live traps, track plates, mist nets for bats, acoustic bat surveys, spotlight surveys, and block tr...

ContextDetermining the appropriate scale at which to study species’ interactions with their environment is a great challenge.Objective We investigated the spatial extent at which landscape structure affects the occurrence of four species of terrestrial mammalian herbivores in the Brazilian savannas and examined whether those scales could be explain...

Nature is experiencing degradation and extinction rates never recorded before in the history of Earth.1,2 Consequently, continuous large-scale monitoring programmes are critical, not only to provide insights into population trends but also to aid in understanding factors associated with altering population dynamics at various temporal and spatial s...

Apex predators play important roles in ecosystem functioning and, where they coexist, intraguild interactions can have profound effects on trophic relationships. Interactions between predators range from intraguild predation and competition to facilitation through scavenging opportunities. Despite the increased availability of fine-scale GPS data,...

In this chapter, we propose a new kind of participatory device designed as a serious game suitable for geoprospective workshops and dedicated to help the setting of multiscale and multisectoral long-term adaptation plans to global change. We explain how and why we combined the concepts of the Coupled Infrastructure System with the paradigm of Multi...

Prey face a trade‐off between acquiring food and avoiding predation, but food availability, and therefore its effect, is rarely measured in field studies investigating non‐lethal effects of predation. The main aim of this study was to investigate the role of the presence of predators in the functional adjustments of feeding parameters with patch qu...

Background Globally, and in the Cape Floristic Region of South Africa, extreme fires have become more common in recent years. Such fires pose societal and ecological threats and have inter alia been attributed to climate change and modification of fuels due to alien plant invasions. Understanding the flammability of different types of indigenous an...

Contexte: Maintenir l'exploitation des ressources naturelles par l'homme et les richesses biologiques sur un territoire est un enjeu majeur qui existe tout particulièrement dans les zones périphériques des aires protégées (AP) des régions tropicales. En effet, les activités humaines autour des AP rendent ces espaces de plus en plus inhospitaliers e...

Understanding, predicting and controlling animal movement is a fundamental problem of conservation and management ecology. The need to mitigate human-wildlife conflicts, such as crop raiding by large herbivores, is becoming increasingly urgent. Because of the substantial costs or the possibility of unsuitable outcomes on wildlife, managers are ofte...

In this chapter, we propose a new kind of participatory device designed as a serious game suitable for geoprospective workshops and dedicated to help the setting of multiscale and multisectoral long-term adaptation plans to global change. We explain how and why we combined the concepts of the Coupled Infrastructure System with the paradigm of Multi...

Original article: https://doi.org/10.17159/sajs.2020/7598 The ORCID identifier [https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7311-3223] given for one of the authors, Stefanie Freitag (South African National Parks, South Africa), is incorrect. This ORCID identifier is assigned to a different individual also named Stefanie Freitag. The person to whom this ORCID ID co...

Interfaces between protected areas and their peripheries in southern Africa are subject to interactions between wildlife and livestock that vary in frequency and intensity. In these areas, the juxtaposition between production and conservation land uses in a context of increasing anthropisation can create issues associated with human-wildlife coexis...

Fission-fusion dynamics allow animals to manage costs and benefits of group living by adjusting group size. The degree of intraspecific variation in fission-fusion dynamics across the geographical range is poorly known. During 2008-2016, 38 adult female Cape buffalo were equipped with GPS collars in three populations located in different protected...

Understanding species threats is underpinned by information on their population trends. We investigated the contribution of population drivers associated with 86 waterbird species’ trends at a local scale, Hwange National Park (HNP) and a national scale (Zimbabwe). We used logistic regression models to test whether waterbird population trends diffe...

In livestock-based livelihoods of the developing world, determination of the nutritive value of browse species is mainly associated with farmer perceptions. Additionally, little is known on seasonal variation in nutritive value of these species in some areas. Therefore, chemical analysis is necessary to validate farmer nutritive value ranking, beca...

Large herbivores form an essential component in the ecosystem, because of the impact that they have on their surrounding habitat. In this study, we aimed to evaluate some of the mechanisms behind how herbivores select forage at a patch scale. Thirty-six experimental plots were established and fitted with camera traps in Kruger National Park to test...

Natural or anthropogenic disturbances (stimuli that trigger a behavioural response from animals) can have direct consequences on fitness and population trends. This study aimed at investigating the relative influence of three types of disturbances (mammalian herbivores, terrestrial threats from ground predators and aerial threats) on the responses...

We investigated application of MaxEnt, a one-class classifier, in mapping the spatial distribution of Colophospermum mopane, Dichrostachys cinerea and Salvadora persica using drainage, elevation, slope, soil and Normalised Difference Vegetation Index as environmental variables. Model performance was evaluated based on the area under the ROC curve (...

Land use changes and the expansion of protected areas (PAs) have amplified the interaction between protected and unprotected areas worldwide. In this context, ‘interface processes’ (human–nature and cross‐boundary interactions inside and around PAs) have become central to issues around the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services. This s...

In large mammal communities, little is known about modification of interspecific interactions through habitat structure changes. We assessed the effects of African elephants (Loxodonta africana) on features of woody habitat structure that can affect predator–prey interactions. We then explored how this can influence where African lions (Panthera le...

Transforming conservation science and practice calls for rallying people's interest in biodiversity while evaluating the response of biodiversity to anthropogenic transformations. Anthropogenic landscapes are critical as they encompass most of the available spaces for living species and shape evolutionary forces for wildlife in the Anthropocene. We...

The distribution and abundance of herbivores in African savannas are constrained by interactions between abiotic and biotic factors. At the species-level, herbivores face trade-offs among foraging requirements, vegetation structure and the availability of surface water that change over spatial and temporal scales. Characterizing herbivore requireme...

Recent evidence indicates that the now submerged continental shelf, the Palaeo-Agulhas Plain (PAP), formed a novel ecosystem during periods of low sea level. This landscape provided nutrient-rich forage and habitats to a variety of large mammals. This is in contrast to the modern faunal assemblage found in the present-day Cape Floristic Region, whi...

Species-specific population data is important for the effective management and conservation of wildlife populations within protected areas. Spotted hyaena (Crocuta crocuta) population density will be determined for Madikwe Game Reserve. Individual photos will be collected over a three-month period opportunistically. These images will be combined wi...

As we see a trend towards small fenced conservation areas across Africa, reintroductions are an increasingly important conservation tool. Species-specific population data is important for the effective management and conservation of wildlife populations within protected areas. Spotted hyaena (Crocuta Crocuta) population data will be determined for...

Many social-ecological system(SES)-based approaches have been proposed to address environmental problems. Most social-ecological frameworks developed to date, however, lack clear operational linkages between humans and nature to efficiently guide SESs toward resilience. A conceptual framework designed to be operational is therefore necessary, as we...

In many semi-arid savanna ecosystems, surface water is scarce and only found in artificially pumped waterholes at the end of the dry season, leading to high large mammal densities and competition. Further, the modification of the physico-chemical characteristics of the drinking water over the dry season (e.g. through faeces accumulation) could enha...

Studies on invertebrates and small vertebrates demonstrated the underappreciated importance of the non-consumptive effects (NCE) of predators on their prey. Recently, there has been a growing interest for such effects in large vertebrates. Here, we review the empirical literature on large carnivore-ungulate systems to map our knowledge of predation...

The global threat posed by invasive alien plants has prompted inventory compilations and screening exercises that aim to understand invasiveness in various taxa. Various traits influence the invasiveness of a species but do not apply to all plant taxa. Ferns are rare or absent from such inventories, but notable fern invasions do exist. We developed...

Protected areas (PAs) constitute the keystone of the conservation strategy throughout the world. However, the increasing landscape and habitat changes occurring around PAs have raised new conservation challenges. In many regions, including tropical savannas, interface areas (IAs) between PAs and the outside world are transformed by the expansion an...

Diel migrations (DM; back and forth diel movements along an ecological gradient) undertaken by prey to avoid predators during the day have been demonstrated in many taxa in aquatic ecosystems. In terrestrial ecosystems, prey often shift between various vegetation types whose cover determine their vulnerability (i.e., likelihood of being killed when...

An introduction to the Snapshot Safari - South Africa project.

Weaving local and scientific knowledge systems is important to enhance understanding, practice, and ethics toward natural resources sustainable utilization. We focused on wetlands and waterbirds and used local knowledge and perceptions by key informants in and around a protected area in Zimbabwe to investigate (a) trends in rainfall and water quali...

Southern African savannas are commonly polarised into two broad types based on plant functional types and defences; infertile savannas dominated by broad-leaved trees typically defended by nitrogen-free secondary compounds and fertile savannas dominated by fine-leaved trees defended by structural defences. In this study, we use trait and other data...

Elephants may live for > 60 years, so it is obvious that long-term studies are necessary if we are to understand their life histories. Here, I review long-term population studies, most based on individual elephants, to show the wealth of detailed mechanisms that such studies can reveal. This review is biased toward African savanna elephants, a refl...

Context The spatial distribution of non-substitutable resources implies diverging predictions for animal movement patterns. At broad scales, animals should respond to landscape complementation by selecting areas where resource patches are close-by to minimize movement costs. Yet at fine scales, central place effects lead to the depletion of patches...