ArticleScientific reports2018
Partial migration in savanna elephant populations distributed across southern Africa.
Article in Scientific reports, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 73 citations in OpenAlex.
- Contrasting African elephant movescapes across xeric and mesic savannas.Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · 2026Article
- Life histories of straight-tusked elephants from the Last Interglacial Neanderthal site of Neumark-Nord (~125 ka).Science advances · 2026Article
- The "Too-Few Elephant Problem": Quantitative Analysis of Historical Elephant Tree-Toppling Rates Across Africa.Ecosystems (New York, N.Y.) · 2026Article
- Seasonal variation in the ranging behavior of elephants in the Laikipia-Samburu ecosystem.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- The contribution of community-based conservation models to conserving large herbivore populations.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Spatial overlap of gray wolves and ungulate prey changes seasonally corresponding to prey migration.Movement ecology · 2024Article
- Local rainfall is more likely than distant thunderstorms to affect movement behaviour in Northern Kenyan elephants.PloS one · 2024Article
- Context drives movement patterns in a mobile marine predator.Movement ecology · 2023Article
- Seasonal range fidelity of a megaherbivore in response to environmental change.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Evolutionary causes and consequences of ungulate migration.Nature ecology & evolution · 2022Article
- Assessing the Impact of Wildlife on Vegetation Cover Change, Northeast Namibia, Based on MODIS Satellite Imagery (2002-2021).Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Cueing on distant conditions before migrating does not prevent false starts: a case study with African elephants.Oecologia · 2022Article
- Review
- New application of strontium isotopes reveals evidence of limited migratory behaviour in Late Cretaceous hadrosaurs.Biology letters · 2020Article
- Article
- Sex-specific differences in spring and autumn migration in a northern large herbivore.Scientific reports · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Migration is an important, but threatened ecological process. Conserving migration requires the maintenance of functional connectivity across sufficiently large areas. Therefore, we need to know if, where and why species migrate. Elephants are highly mobile and can travel long distances but we do not know if they migrate. Here, we analysed the movement trajectories of 139 savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) within eight clusters of protected areas across southern Africa to determine if elephants migrate, and if so, where, how and why they migrate. Only 25 of these elephants migrated. Elephants are a facultative partially migratory species, where only some individuals in a population migrate opportunistically, and not every year. Elephants migrated between distinct seasonal ranges corresponding to southern Africa's dry and wet seasons. The timing of wet season migrations was associated with the onset of rainfall and the subsequent greening up of forage. Conversely, the duration, distance, and the timing of dry season migrations varied idiosyncratically. The drivers of elephant migration are likely a complex interaction between individual traits, density, and the distribution and availability of resources. Despite most migrations crossing administrative boundaries, conservation networks provided functional space for elephants to migrate.
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