Protect forest elephants to conserve ecosystems, not DNA

Date:  April 25, 2018

Source:  Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Summary:

New research has found that forest elephant populations across Central Africa are genetically quite similar to one another. Conserving this critically endangered species across its range is crucial to preserving local plant diversity in Central and West African Afrotropical forests -- meaning conservationists could save many species by protecting one.

Although it is erroneously treated as a subspecies, the dwindling African forest elephant is a genetically distinct species. New University of Illinois research has found that forest elephant populations across Central Africa are genetically quite similar to one another. Conserving this critically endangered species across its range is crucial to preserving local plant diversity in Central and West African Afrotropical forests -- meaning conservationists could save many species by protecting one.

"Forest elephants are the heart of these ecosystems -- without them, the system falls apart, and many other species are jeopardized," said the principal investigator of this research, Alfred Roca, a professor of animal sciences at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology and College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES).

African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) are morphologically and genetically distinct from their iconic larger cousins, the African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) that populate the grasslands of Eastern and Southern Africa. Forest elephants are smaller with straighter tusks and live in the rainforests of Central and West Africa where they maintain tropical ecosystems through seed dispersal and germination, as well as nutrient recycling and herbivory.

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A lost century for forest elephants

Date: August 30, 2016

Source: Wildlife Conservation Society

Because forest elephants are one the slowest reproducing mammals in the world, it will take almost a century for them to recover from the intense poaching they have suffered since 2002. Not only does it take more than two decades for female forest elephants to begin reproducing, but they also give birth only once every five to six years.

The findings are from a first-ever study of forest elephant demography published Aug. 31 in the Journal of Applied Ecology.

There are two species of elephants in Africa. Savannah elephants make up the majority across the continent, with smaller numbers of the more diminutive forest elephants restricted to tropical forests. Forest elephants have experienced serious poaching, driving an estimated population decline of 65 percent between 2002 and 2013 according to a study led by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

Their reported low birth rates mean that it will take forest elephants at least 90 years to recover from these losses, according to researchers from the WCS, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Elephant Listening Project, Colorado State University, and Save the Elephants. The team used decades of intensive monitoring data that recorded births and deaths of the elephants using the Dzanga Bai in Central African Republic, part of the UNESCO World Heritage Sangha Trinational area. (Dzanga Bai translates roughly as "village of elephants.")

"This work provides another critical piece of understanding regarding the dire conservation status of forest elephants," said the study's lead author Andrea Turkalo, WCS Associate Conservation Scientist, who over several decades collected the detailed data on the Dzanga elephants despite tough logistical challenges and political instability.

Using data Turkalo collected from 1990 to 2013 during nearly daily visits to a mineral rich forest clearing, or bai, that attracts elephants and other wildlife, the authors were able to uncover the age at which the forest elephants had their first calves, the length of time between calves, and other behaviors.

The team found that forest elephants begin breeding later and have much longer calving intervals than other elephants, which means the population takes much longer to increase.

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Scientists: we are 'condemning' forest elephants by ignoring evidence

As the ivory trade threatens to obliterate forest elephants, conservationists and governments fail to recognise them as a distinct species despite rising genetic and physical evidence 

Jeremy Hance

Thursday 23 July 2015 09.11 BSTLast modified on Thursday 23 July 201513.37 BST

How do you tell two species apart? Let’s say you’re investigating a bird with two populations. One lives in the savanna, the other in the forest. The savanna population eats grasshoppers, but the one in the forest eats beetles. The savanna bird is big-bodied with a curvy beak; the forest bird is smaller with a straighter beak. Is this enough to determine you’re dealing with not one, but two species? Probably. But how about you look at the genetics? Lo and behold, the animals’ DNA shows that the birds have been separated by 6 million years – easily making it two species.

Now, let’s say we’re not talking about birds here, but elephants. African elephants. Suddenly, things get messy. Really messy. And political. And heated.

“To my knowledge, all the evidence, now a very large amount, supports two [African elephant] species, and no evidence supports one,” said Nick Georgiadis, a research scientist with the Puget Sound Institute and a co-author of a recent paper that argues for two species published in the Annual Review of Animal Biosciences. “There never was any objective evidence supporting one species, just a few subjective preferences that became dogma.”

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Liberian camera trap survey captures rare footage of forest elephants

Camera traps in Liberia have captured footage of chimps, pygmy hippos and elephants. This is the country’s only footage of elephants filmed outside a designated protected area and includes scenes of a forest elephant heaving its massive body up a steep slope with surprising agility.

The cameras are part of a biodiversity baseline study carried out by Fauna & Flora International (FFI) in Wonegizi Proposed Protected Area, which aimed to gain a better understanding of the current health of the ecosystem and its wildlife.

“The initial surveys found at least three elephants in the area, but we have barely scratched the surface – we suspect that a more intensive, elephant-focused survey might reveal many more,” explained FFI’s Project Adviser, Josh Kempinski.

Read on ...

Tusks from at least 94 dead elephants seized in Cameroon

Posted by: Kevin Heath / 5 days ago

Officials at Yaounde-Nsimalen International Airport yesterday seized 200 tusks after locals provided the officials with a tip-off about the shipment. No arrests have yet been made and police are currently investigating the case. The supervising officer explained that it seems the tusks originated from the Southern part of Cameroon and possibly the border region with Gabon.

The number of tusks suggested that at least 94 forest elephants had been killed.

Cameroon has seen large-scale killings of its elephants before but with sentences for poachers being relatively light - maximum of three years in prison – there is little disincentive for poachers to stop operating.

While tusks of any elephant is valuable on the Asian markets it is ivory from forest elephants that is highly sought after because of its gentle pink hue and better carving features.

The current scale of losses of the forest elephants can be hard to believe – the latest figures indicate that 65% of the forest elephant population has been killed over the last 12 year and under 100,000 now remain from 300,000 just over a decade ago.

At current poaching rates a forest elephant in Africa is being killed every 20 minutes. Unless action is taken to reduce demand for the ivory and more pro-active action is taken to reduce the poaching it is expected that the forest elephant of Central and East Africa will be extinct in the wild in just over 10 years.

The population of forest elephants has declined by 65 per cent in 12 years

February 2014: A shocking 65 per cent of forest elephants have been illegally killed for their ivory in between 2002 and 2013 new data from the field in Central Africa shows. Many organisations collaborated in the study, which was coordinated by WCS, and covered 80 sites, in five countries, over the twelve years of data collection.
“These new numbers showing the continuing decline of the African forest elephant are the exact reason why there is a sense of urgency at the United for Wildlife trafficking symposium in London this week,” said Dr. John Robinson, WCS Chief Conservation Officer and Executive Vice President of Conservation and Science. “The solutions we are discussing in London this week and the commitments we are making cannot fail or the African forest elephant will blink out in our lifetime. United for Wildlife, which is headed by The Duke of Cambridge, is determined to work together to turn back these numbers.”

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African forest elephants decline by 62% in 10 years

Forest elephant numbers have decreased by 62% across Central Africa over the last 10 years, according to a study.

The analysis confirmed fears that African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) are heading for extinction, possibly within the next decade.

Conservationists said "effective, rapid, multi-level action is imperative" in order to save the elephants.

They are concerned the forest elephants are being killed for their ivory.

Results of the study, undertaken by researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and several other conservation organisations, are published in the scientific journal PLoS One.

Over 60 co-authors contributed to the study, which was led by Dr Fiona Maisels, a WCS conservation scientist from the School of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, and Dr Samantha Strindberg, also a WCS conservation scientist.

"Although we were expecting to see these results, we were horrified that the decline over the period of a mere decade was over 60%," Dr Maisels told BBC Nature.

Findings also indicated that large areas where the elephants ranged just 10 years ago now have very few elephants remaining.

Continued: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/21655613

African elephant is two species, researchers say

Genetic researchers may have resolved a long-standing dispute by proving there are two species of African elephant.


Savannah and forest elephants have been separated for at least three million years, they say, and are as distinct from each other as Asian elephants are from the extinct woolly mammoth.

The researchers also made what they say are the first sequences of nuclear DNA from the extinct American mastodon.

The study is reported in the journal Public Library of Science Biology.

The debate over whether the African elephant is one or two species has been going on for about a decade.

Weighing in at six or seven tonnes, the much larger elephants found on savannah are about twice as heavy as forest-dwellers.

This, along with other differences in size and shape, has led some researchers to conclude there are two species - the savannah (or bush) elephant, Loxodonta africana, and the forest species, Loxodonta cyclotis.

The scientists - from the US, UK and Germany - now say they have proved the case.

"The divergence of the two species took place around the time of the divergence of the Asian elephant and woolly mammoths," said Michi Hofreiter, a specialist in ancient DNA at the UK's York University.

"The split between African savannah and forest elephants is almost as old as the split between humans and chimpanzees. This result amazed us all."

IUCN
The researchers compared sequences of DNA from the nuclei of African and Asian elephants, and from woolly mammoths and the American mastodon.

All are members of the Proboscidea order of mammals.

The mastodon became extinct about 10,000 years ago - around the same time that mammoths disappeared from most of their range.

Although mastodon mitochondrial DNA has been sequenced before, the researchers say they were the first to do the analysis on DNA from the cell nucleus - in this case, using material from a tooth.

"Experimentally, we had a major challenge to extract DNA sequences from two fossils - mammoths and mastodons - and line them up with DNA from modern elephants over hundreds of sections of the genome," said Nadin Rohland of Harvard Medical School.

The genetic "distance" between the Asian elephant and the woolly mammoth turned out to be about the same as between the two African elephant species - which, the researchers say, proves the case for two distinct species in Africa now.

Fragmented world
The picture of elephant conservation across Africa is a mixed one.

In southern countries, the animals are thriving, with populations increasing so fast that governments have had to consider culls.


However, the picture is very different in Central and West Africa, where poaching, ivory smuggling and the bushmeat trade are fragmenting populations.

If there are indeed two species, the forest dwellers are the ones most under pressure, as they tend to be found in areas where poaching and smuggling are rife.

Potentially, confirming the separation could help direct conservation efforts where they are most needed, according to Simon Stuart, chair of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Species Survival Commission (SSC).

"We'd have to review the evidence to see whether we need to split the African elephant into two entries on the Red List of Threatened Species," he told BBC News.

"Currently the species is listed as Vulnerable but it's possible that if there are two, one would come out in a more serious category and the other in a less serious one.

"This could be helpful for highlighting the Central African issue."

However, he cautioned, other research groups may well challenge the conclusion of the latest study, and the debate may have some way to run.

By Richard Black

Environment correspondent, BBC News

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12054343