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Interference competition and temporal niche shifts: elephants and herbivore communities at waterholes

  • Behavioral Ecology
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Abstract

Scarcity of resources may result in high levels of animal aggregation; interference competition can occur in such a scenario and play a role in resource acquisition. Here, we test the hypothesis that animals could minimize interference competition by shifting their temporal niches in relation to competitors. In Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, we monitored waterholes in order to study agonistic interactions between elephants and other herbivore species. We also used a long-term data set from a yearly survey of waterhole attendance by herbivores to evaluate the influence of the presence of elephants on the use of waterholes by other herbivore species. Our results show that in drier years, waterholes are crowded with elephants early in the afternoon. In general, the species most affected by interference competition with elephants shift their temporal niches at the waterholes, thus maintaining a constant temporal overlaps with elephants. The species less affected by interference competition with elephants show no temporal niche shifts and increase their temporal overlap with elephants at waterholes, as predicted from a noncompetition hypothesis. This study provides evidence that interference competition with a behaviorally dominant large species influences the temporal niches of smaller species, and suggests that the potential costs associated with interference between elephants and other herbivores at waterholes are linked to shifts in diurnal activities rather than interactions and water acquisition itself.

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Acknowledgments

The Director General of the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority is acknowledged for providing the opportunity to carry out this research and for permission to publish this manuscript. We are indebted to the Wildlife Environment Zimbabwe for their indispensable data. Marion Valeix and Simon Chamaillé-Jammes were supported by a Ph.D. grant from the French “Ministère de la Recherche” through the “Ecole Doctorale Diversité du Vivant” of “Université Pierre et Marie Curie.” This research was carried out within the framework of the HERD project (Hwange Environmental Research Development), funded by the French “Ministère des Affaires Etrangères,” the “Ambassade de France au Zimbabwe,” the CIRAD, the CNRS and the IFB “Global Change and Biodiversity.” We also want to acknowledge Sébastien Le Bel, CIRAD representative in Zimbabwe. We thank Johan du Toit, Michel Loreau, Patrick Duncan, William Eldridge, Donna Robertson and three anonymous referees for their fruitful comments on previous drafts. Special thanks go to the rangers, students and volunteers who participated in the fieldwork.

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Author notes

  1. Simon Chamaillé-Jammes & Hervé Fritz

    Present address: CNRS UMR 5558, Laboratoire Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive, Bât Gregor Mendel, Université Claude Bernard-Lyon 1, 43 Bd du 11 novembre 1918, 69622, Villeurbanne Cedex, France

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CNRS UPR 1934, Centre d’Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, 79360, Beauvoir-sur-Niort, France

    Marion Valeix, Simon Chamaillé-Jammes & Hervé Fritz

  2. CIRAD EMVT, Integrated Wildlife Management Research Unit, Campus International de Baillarguet, 34398, Montpellier Cedex 5, France

    Marion Valeix & Simon Chamaillé-Jammes

Authors
  1. Marion Valeix
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  2. Simon Chamaillé-Jammes
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  3. Hervé Fritz
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Correspondence to Marion Valeix.

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Communicated by Roland Brandl.

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Valeix, M., Chamaillé-Jammes, S. & Fritz, H. Interference competition and temporal niche shifts: elephants and herbivore communities at waterholes. Oecologia 153, 739–748 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-007-0764-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-007-0764-5

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