Too much rain, not high temps, threaten giraffes survival

Giraffes in East African savannahs are threatened by increasingly heavy rainfall, researchers report.

Climate change is expected to cause widespread decline in wildlife populations worldwide. But little was previously known about the combined effects of climate change and human activity on the survival rates not only of giraffes, but of any large African herbivore species.

For the new, decade-long study, the researchers looked at a giraffe population in the Tarangire region of Tanzania. The study area spanned more than a thousand square kilometers, including areas inside and outside protected areas.

Contrary to expectations, the researchers found higher temperatures positively affected adult giraffe survival, while rainier wet seasons negatively affected adult and calf survival.

The research team quantified the effects of local anomalies of temperature, rainfall, and vegetation greenness on the probability of survival of the giraffes. They also explored whether climate had a greater effect on giraffes that were also affected by human activity at the edges of the protected reserves.

“Studying the effects of climate and human pressures on a long-lived and slow-breeding animal like a giraffe requires monitoring their populations over a lengthy time period and over a large area, enough to capture both climate variation and any immediate or delayed effects on survival,” says lead author Monica Bond, a postdoctoral research associate in the department of evolutionary biology and environmental studies at the University of Zurich.

The team obtained nearly two decades of data on local rainfall, vegetation greenness, and temperature during Tanzania’s short rains, long rains, and dry season, and then followed the fates of 2,385 individually recognized giraffes of all ages and sexes over the final eight years of the two-decade period.

The team had predicted that higher temperatures would hurt adult giraffes because their very large body size might make them overheat, but in fact they found that higher temperatures positively affected adult giraffe survival.

“The giraffe has several physical features that help it to keep cool, like a long neck and legs for evaporative heat loss, specialized nasal cavities, an intricate network of arteries that supply blood to the brain, and spot patches which radiate heat,” says senior author Derek Lee, associate research professor of biology at Penn State.

However, Lee also points out that “temperatures during our study period may not have exceeded the tolerable thermal range for giraffes, and an extreme heat wave in the future might reveal a threshold above which these massive animals might be harmed.”

Survival of giraffe adults and calves declined during rainier wet seasons, which the researchers attribute to a possible increase in parasites and disease.

A previous study in the Tarangire region showed giraffe gastrointestinal parasite intensity was higher during the rainy seasons than the dry season, and heavy flooding has caused severe outbreaks of diseases known to cause mortality in giraffes, such as Rift Valley fever virus and anthrax.

The current study also found higher vegetation greenness reduced adult giraffe survival, potentially because faster leaf growth reduces nutrient quality in giraffe food.

The giraffes’ proximity to the edge of protected reserves exacerbated climate effects, but not during every season.

“Our findings indicate that giraffes living near the peripheries of the protected areas are most vulnerable during heavy short rains. These conditions likely heighten disease risks associated with livestock, and muddy terrain hampers anti-poaching patrols, leading to increased threats to giraffe survival,” says coauthor Arpat Ozgul, a professor at the University of Zurich.

The team concludes that projected climate changes in East Africa, including heavier rainfall during the short rains, will likely threaten the existence of giraffes in one of Earth’s most important landscapes for large mammals, indicating the need for effective land-use planning and anti-poaching to improve giraffes’ resilience to the coming changes.

Source: University of Zurich

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