Ants are the reason: Lions are hunting fewer zebras and more buffalo in Kenya

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This is what a team of researchers wrote in the specialist journal “Science”. Instead of zebras, lions now more often prey on Cape buffalo, which, as before, are much more difficult to defeat.

According to researchers led by Douglas Kamaru of the University of Wyoming, the chain reaction started like this: Large-headed alien ants (Pheidole megacephala) drove out native Crematogaster ants. They live on the thorns of flute acacias (Vachellia drepanolobium) and act as guards: if a herbivore dares to gnaw “its” tree, it will attack it within seconds and bite painfully. Even African elephants (Loxodonta africana) are deterred by this.

“To our great surprise, we found that these tiny ants are incredibly powerful defenders and stabilize the tree canopy in these landscapes, allowing acacia trees to survive in a place where many large herbivorous mammals are present,” said study co-author Todd Palmer. University of Florida. However, big-headed ants, believed to come from an island in the Indian Ocean, cannot protect the trees.

Flute acacias make up 70 to almost 100 percent of all woody stems in the region, according to the study. Without guard ants, elephants eat and break five to seven times as much trees. That’s where lions come in: They use the privacy of acacia trees to track their favorite prey, plains zebras (Equus quagga). Simple equation: fewer trees means less hunting success. According to the research team, with the spread of big-headed ants, the number of zebras killed by lions dropped noticeably.

“We often see that it’s the little things that make the world go around,” Palmer said. “These little invasive ants appeared maybe 15 years ago and none of us noticed because they’re not aggressive towards large animals, including humans. Now we’re seeing them changing the landscape in very subtle ways but with devastating effects.”

The study authors report that the lion population has not yet declined. Probably because they changed their diet from lots of zebra to more Cape buffalo (Syncerus caffer). However, they are larger and harder to catch. “Nature is smart, and animals like lions tend to find solutions to the problems they encounter,” says Palmer. “But we don’t yet know what consequences this profound change in lions’ hunting strategy might have.” It will be very interesting to follow the story further.

(SDA)

Source : Blick