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A first assessment of megaherbivore subsidies in artificial waterholes in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe

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Abstract

The transfer of terrestrial organic matter by terrestrial wild and domestic animals when they urinate and defecate directly in Savanna Rivers has already been studied. However, the eulittoral zone around waterholes receives organic matter during the dry season, which is diluted in the ecosystem when the waterholes returns to its wet season level. In our study, we evaluated this pathway of subsidies in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, by estimating dung density in the eulittoral zone at the peak of the dry season. We also collected dung from different herbivore species during the dry and wet seasons to measure nutrient content and estimate nitrogen and phosphorus leaching rates. Our results show a decrease in carbon:phosphorus and nitrogen:phosphorus ratios in the dry season compared to the wet season. During the dry season, the deposition of total carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus, mostly due to elephants, is estimated to be 8.65, 0.25, and 0.06 g/m2/day, respectively, while the leaching rates of dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus are 1.52 mg and 6.59 mg m2/day, respectively. No specific coloured dissolved organic matter signature for dung was identified. We discuss the temporal dynamics of the subsidies as a distinctive feature of the system.

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Acknowledgements

The Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, Forestry Commission, and Hwange traditional leadership granted access to the study sites. Special thanks go to the rangers, students, and volunteers who participated in the fieldwork, Zoran Cerovic for his help in identifying the CDOM compounds, and Emma Rochelle-Newall, Marion Valeix, Simon Chamaillé-Jammes, and Hervé Fritz for their comments on the initial draft of the manuscript. We are grateful to Chris Joyce and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. This work was conducted within the framework of the Research Platform “Production and Conservation in Partnership” (RP-PCP). We thank the Agence Nationale de la Recherche for their financial support via the SAVARID 2011 CEPL-003 project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ecologie Systématique Evolution, Univ. Paris-Sud, CNRS, AgroParisTech, Université Paris-Saclay, 91400, Orsay, France

    Florence D. Hulot & Antonin Prijac

  2. Zone Atelier Hwange - Hwange LTER, CNRS-CIRAD, Box 62, Dete, Zimbabwe

    Florence D. Hulot

  3. Laboratoire d’Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales, IRD, CNES – CNRS-Univ. Paul Sabatier Toulouse III, 31400, Toulouse, France

    Jean-Pierre Lefebvre

  4. Biological Sciences Department, University of Zimbabwe, P.O. Box MP 167, Mont Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe

    Stembile Msiteli-Shumba & Shakkie Kativu

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  1. Florence D. Hulot
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Hulot, F.D., Prijac, A., Lefebvre, JP. et al. A first assessment of megaherbivore subsidies in artificial waterholes in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. Hydrobiologia 837, 161–175 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-019-3968-x

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