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Young World
Help each other
As elephants bash and browse through the trees of the African Savanna, they create nooks and crannies for little geckos to hide from predators and the hot sun, according to a new study. The research shows that the population of Kenya’s dwarf geckos increases proportionally with the number of trees with limbs snapped, trunks split, bark stripped, and branches fallen in the wake of an elephant run-in. African bush elephants, which weigh more than 15,000 pounds (7,000 k
ilograms), are known to modify habitats dramatically, noted Robert Pringle, an ecologist and conservation biologist at Stanford University in California, U.S. The damage caused by elephants creates crevices in broken trees, as well as a cover of strewn branches, providing geckos with secure spaces to rest or lay eggs, he explained. The finding is a “very nice demonstration” of ecosystem engineering, said Clive Jones, an ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York. Ecosystem engineering is the process by which the activities of one kind of animal can structurally modify habitats of another, potentially benefiting other species.
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