Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America.
Agence Nationale des Parcs Nationaux, Batterie IV, Libreville, Gabon.
PLoS One. 2018 Jul 11;13(7):e0199387. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0199387. eCollection 2018.
Poaching of forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) for ivory has decimated their populations in Central Africa. Studying elephant movement can provide insight into habitat and resource use to reveal where, when, and why they move and guide conservation efforts. We fitted 17 forest elephants with global positioning system (GPS) collars in 2015 and 2016 in the tropical forest-grassland mosaic of the Wonga Wongué Presidential Reserve (WW), Gabon. Using the location data, we quantified movement distances, home ranges, and habitat use to examine the environmental drivers of elephant movements and predict where elephants occur spatially and temporally. Forest elephants, on average, traveled 2,840 km annually and had home ranges of 713 km2, with males covering significantly larger home ranges than females. Forest elephants demonstrated both daily and seasonal movement patterns. Daily, they moved between forest and grassland at dawn and dusk. Seasonally, they spent proportionally more time in grassland than forest during the short-wet season when grasses recruit. Forest elephants also traveled faster during the short-wet season when fruit availability was greatest, likely reflecting long, direct movements to preferred fruiting tree species. Forest elephants tended to select areas with high tree and shrub density that afford cover and browse. When villages occurred in their home ranges elephants spent a disproportionate amount of time near them, particularly in the dry season, probably for access to agricultural crops and preferred habitat. Given the importance of the grassland habitat for elephants, maintenance of the forest-grassland matrix is a conservation priority in WW. Law enforcement, outreach, and education should focus on areas of potential human-elephant conflict near villages along the borders of the reserve. GPS-tracking should be extended into multi-use areas in the peripheries of protected areas to evaluate the effects of human disturbance on elephant movements and to maintain connectivity among elephant populations in Gabon.
偷猎森林象（Loxodonta cyclotis）获取象牙导致它们在中非的数量锐减。研究大象的活动可以深入了解其栖息地和资源利用情况，揭示它们的活动地点、时间和原因，并为保护工作提供指导。我们于 2015 年和 2016 年在加蓬的旺戈旺戈总统保护区（WW）的热带森林-草原镶嵌区为 17 头森林象佩戴了全球定位系统（GPS）项圈。利用这些位置数据，我们量化了它们的移动距离、活动范围和栖息地利用情况，以研究大象活动的环境驱动因素，并预测它们在空间和时间上的出现位置。森林象平均每年移动 2840 公里，活动范围为 713 平方公里，雄性的活动范围明显大于雌性。森林象表现出日活动和季节活动模式。每天，它们在黎明和黄昏时分在森林和草原之间移动。在雨季较短的季节，当草类生长时，它们在草原上的时间比例会增加。当水果供应最充足时，森林象在雨季较短的季节移动速度也会加快，这可能反映了它们为寻找喜欢的果实树种而进行的长距离直接移动。森林象还倾向于选择树木和灌木密度较高的区域，这些区域提供了遮蔽和可食用的植被。当村庄出现在它们的活动范围内时，大象会在村庄附近花费不成比例的时间，尤其是在旱季，这可能是为了获取农田作物和偏好的栖息地。鉴于草原栖息地对大象的重要性，维护森林-草原矩阵是 WW 的保护重点。执法、外联和教育应集中在保护区边界沿线村庄附近可能发生人与象冲突的地区。GPS 跟踪应扩展到保护区周边多用途地区，以评估人类干扰对大象活动的影响，并保持加蓬大象种群之间的连通性。
