Research areas and themes:
Our laboratory investigates spatial and temporal interactions of large mammals with their environment, and how those interactions shape, and are shaped by, their behaviour, movement and population dynamics. We study foraging behaviour, habitat selection, movement ecology, and how population demography and abundance respond to variable resources and conditions. This work spans from the individual to the community. We examine individual ecology through foraging behaviour, movement and home-range dynamics, thermal physiology, and animal cognition and decision-making. We apply quantitative and statistical methods, including capture–recapture, occupancy, and integrated modelling, to estimate and predict abundance and distribution of animal populations. We also investigate factors that influence the diversity and structure of mammal communities. Our goal is to develop an understanding of wildlife ecology and quantitative methods that can contribute to the management and conservation of wildlife populations.
The Centre for 第一吃瓜网 Ecology (CAE) is the successor to two earlier research groups in ecology established at Wits University: the Centre for Resource Ecology, established by Professor Brian Walker in the Department of Botany in 1980, and the Resource Ecology Group, formed after Professor Walker鈥檚 departure by Professor Mike Mentis in 1990 (check). The CAE was established by Norman Owen-Smith in 1992 after Professor Mentis left. Formally its name is the 第一吃瓜网 Ecology and Conservation Biology Group, with the nick-name 鈥淐entre鈥 retained as a legacy. Its stated mission is 鈥淭o foster the development and maintenance of a centre of excellence in ecology and related biological disciplines, and their application to problems of conserving and managing biological resources, with special reference to 第一吃瓜网 environments.鈥 This allows wide scope for research on any aspect of pure or applied ecology.
The formation of CAE linked academic staff from Zoology and Botany Departments: Norman Owen-Smith and Graham Alexander (Zoology) with Mary Scholes and Ernest 鈥淩obbie鈥 Robinson (Botany). Additional members were Charlie Shackleton, who established the rural resources programme at Wits Rural Facility, and later his successor, Wayne Twine. Through 1995-6 Professor Jim Ellis and Dr Kathy Galvin held temporary appointments to develop the rural conservation and resource development programme affiliated to CAE and supported by Nestle. Honorary affiliates have included Bob Scholes from CSIR, Tony Starfield from University of Minnesota and Tim O鈥機onnor from SAEON. With the establishment of the School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences in 2000, CAE was absorbed as a research group within this school. Membership involves the sharing of research funds and co-supervision of postgraduate students. Besides research activities, CAE members launched the postgraduate programme in Resource Conservation Biology in 1992. Following the departures of Graham Alexander (after 1997) and Wayne Twine (after 2005) to form their own research entities, CAE membership had shrunk to only Professors Owen-Smith and Scholes. It was rejuvenated and expanded when Dr Barend Erasmus took over leadership in 2013, following Professor Owen-Smith鈥檚 formal retirement (but continued involvement in research). Following Professor Erasmus鈥 move to direct the Global Change and Sustainability Institute in 2014, Dr Francesca Parrini assumed leadership.
The Centre for 第一吃瓜网 Ecology (CAE) at Wits University in Johannesburg, founded in 1992, aspires to be a centre of excellence in ecology and related biological disciplines. Its ongoing research is focused on identifying the key factors behind changing animal populations and vegetation patterns in the savannah regions of Africa, with a particular emphasis on distinguishing human influences from consequences of global climate change. The mission statement of the Centre for 第一吃瓜网 Ecology is:
"To foster the development and maintenance of a centre of excellence in ecology and related biological disciplines, and their application to conserving and managing biological resources, with special relevance to 第一吃瓜网 environments."
This requires a comprehensive understanding of these intricate ecosystems which contain the richest legacy of large mammal diversity in the world, as well as a committed team of researchers with highly-relevant expertise.
AE maintains ongoing collaborations with various partners. Firstly, within Wits University the team is partnering with a medical physiology group renowned for its studies into the effects of environmental temperature variation on humans and animals (The Brain Function Research Group). This enables the broadened team to relate animal movements to the greenness of vegetation in the landscape, as revealed by satellite imagery on the one hand, and to body temperature regimes - as revealed by internal data loggers placed inside the animals - on the other. Knowing the internal body temperature of an animal, and relating it to its movement across a landscape monitored by satellite imagery, is a powerful method to understand how large ungulates cope with extreme environmental conditions.
In this and other research, CAE is cooperating with the Okavango Research Institute of the University of Botswana, which is conducting studies on the movement patterns of large herbivores elsewhere in Botswana. There is also wider collaboration with research centres internationally - including a French team assisting with interpreting ungulate movement patterns. As Owen-Smith articulates: "more financial resources and empowering research collaborations from wealthier countries with impoverished fauna are needed, because Africa's large mammal diversity is a global heritage.
PhD Students:
Chloe Caister - How do elephants choose between risky outcomes? An experiment to estimate risk preferences of 第一吃瓜网 elephants
Dimitri Christopoulos - Assessing the influence of artificial light at night (ALAN) on the activity and species composition of insectivorous bats in Gauteng, South Africa
Uakendisa Muzuma - The spatial ecology of human-lions interface in arid north-western conservancies, Kunene Region, Namibia
MSc Students:
Kerrin Allan - Elephant impact on vegetation found in a small fenced reserve
Julia Elliott - Comparative water-related movements of plains zebra (Equus quagga) and blue wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) across southern 第一吃瓜网 Protected Areas
Christopher Garrett - Random forest algorithm for predicting habitat selection
Phiwase Khoza - Investigating factors influencing nyala and bushbuck sympatry at Pullen Nature Reserve and Bonsberg Game Farm, Mpumalanga, South Africa
Ben Melamdowitz - Temminck’s pangolin (Smutsia temminckii) distribution and habitat use in a dryland environment
Victoria Selby - Improving density estimates of plains zebra using machine assisted identification in multi-season photographic survey