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Mesoherbivores affect grasshopper communities in a megaherbivore-dominated South African savannah

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Abstract

African savannahs are among the few places on earth where diverse communities of mega- and meso-sized ungulate grazers dominate ecosystem functioning. Less conspicuous, but even more diverse, are the communities of herbivorous insects such as grasshoppers, which share the same food. Various studies investigated the community assembly of these groups separately, but it is poorly known how ungulate communities shape grasshopper communities. Here, we investigated how ungulate species of different body size alter grasshopper communities in a South African savannah. White rhino is the most abundant vertebrate herbivore in our study site. Other common mesoherbivores include buffalo, zebra and impala. We hypothesized that white rhinos would have greater impact than mesoherbivores on grasshopper communities. Using 10-year-old exclosures, at eight sites we compared the effects of ungulates on grasshopper communities in three nested treatments: (i) unfenced plots (‘control plots’) with all vertebrate herbivores present, (ii) plots with a low cable fence, excluding white rhino (‘megaherbivore exclosures’), and (iii) plots with tall fences, excluding all herbivores larger than rodents (‘complete ungulate exclosures’). In each plot, we collected data of vegetation structure, grass and grasshopper community composition. Complete ungulate exclosures contained 30 % taller vegetation than megaherbivore exclosures and they were dominated by different grass and grasshopper species. Grasshoppers in complete ungulate exclosures were on average 3.5 mm longer than grasshoppers in megaherbivore exclosures, possibly due to changes in plant communities or vegetation structure. We conclude that surprisingly, in this megaherbivore hotspot, mesoherbivores, instead of megaherbivores, most strongly affect grasshopper communities.

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Acknowledgments

We thank William Bond and the ZLTP for setting up the exclosures investigated in this study. Additionally, we thank the SABRE and ZLTP team for maintaining exclosures over the years. We are also grateful to Maarten Schrama, Nelly van Eck, Julia Wakeling and the SABRE team for the coordination of, and helping with, the data collection. Thanks must also go to Roel van Klink, Cleo Graf and Maarten Schrama, who provided useful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript. Finally, we want to thank KZN wildlife for permitting us to perform this study.

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  1. Community and Conservation Ecology, Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Studies, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 7, 9747AG, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Fons van der Plas & Han Olff

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  1. Fons van der Plas
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  2. Han Olff
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Correspondence to Fons van der Plas.

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Communicated by Riccardo Bommarco.

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van der Plas, F., Olff, H. Mesoherbivores affect grasshopper communities in a megaherbivore-dominated South African savannah. Oecologia 175, 639–649 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-014-2920-z

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