![]() The Project was supported by the Eppley Foundation, Panthera Foundation and the kind generosity of Rivington and Joan Winant, Adrian Gardiner and the Lilian Jean Kaplan Foundation. Frankenberg Foundation the Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation and Instalite Contracting Bulawayo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.įunding: The work was supported by the Darwin Initiative for Biodiversity, Disney Wildlife Conservation Foundation, SAVE Foundation, Regina B. ![]() Received: OctoAccepted: DecemPublished: February 6, 2013Ĭopyright: © 2013 Davidson et al. PLoS ONE 8(2):Īustralian Wildlife Conservancy, Australia ![]() (2013) Seasonal Diet and Prey Preference of the African Lion in a Waterhole-Driven Semi-Arid Savanna. This suggested that surface-water resources form passive traps and contribute to the structuring of lion foraging behaviour.Ĭitation: Davidson Z, Valeix M, Van Kesteren F, Loveridge AJ, Hunt JE, Murindagomo F, et al. Jacobs’ index finally revealed a very strong preference for kills within 2 km from a waterhole for all prey species, except small antelopes, in all seasons. Further, it revealed the opportunistic hunting behaviour of lions for prey as diverse as elephants and mice, with elephants taken mostly as juveniles at the end of the dry season during droughts. This study revealed seasonal patterns in secondary prey consumption by female lions partly based on prey ecology with browsers, such as giraffe and kudu, mainly consumed in the early dry season, and grazers, such as zebra and suids, contributing more to female diet in the late dry season. For female lions, kudu and to a lesser extent the group “medium Bovidae” are the most important secondary prey. Jacobs’ index also revealed that buffalo was the most intensively selected species throughout the year. Buffalo consistently emerged as the most frequently utilised prey in all seasons by both male (56%) and female (33%) lions, contributing the most to lion dietary biomass. We used data from 245 kills and 74 faecal samples. feeding locations) of African lions in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, a semi-arid African savanna structured by artificial waterholes. Here, we investigate the seasonal contribution of the different herbivore species, prey preference and distribution of kills (i.e. In semi-arid ecosystems, herbivore distribution is generally more homogeneous in the wet season, when surface water is abundant, than in the dry season when only permanent sources remain. Large carnivores inhabiting ecosystems with heterogeneously distributed environmental resources with strong seasonal variations frequently employ opportunistic foraging strategies, often typified by seasonal switches in diet.
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