Savannah Ecology

Most East African safaris spend a lot of time in the savannah biome. Forests and coastal areas are also popular, but the savannah is where the safari focussed and a basic understanding of the ecology of this biome will make a visit much more interesting. You can read more about savannahs and the savanna biome here on Wikipedia, of course, and there's a large team making sure that post is up to date. But I like to break into the subject rather differently so will do my own thing here, with future posts picking up the threads we identfy here.

Let's start by defining the savannah biome. Note first that I'm trying to be careful to talk of a biome here, not simply a habitat - the savannah biome is made up of many different habitats from grasslands and woodlands, to kopjes and swamps. Each of these habitats (and others) play an important role in the savannah biome and we'll visit them individually in future posts. In fact, the biome is defined as a grass dominated system - the grasslands are obviously part of the savannah ecosystem, but the woodlands and other habitats also have an understory dominated by grasses. The two photos above show typical grassland savannah from Kruger NP (South Africa) in the top (plus White Rhino) and an Acacia woodland (plue Oryx) with thick grassy understory in Tarangire NP (Tanzania). Other savannahs might looks less familiar to East African safari types - check the nice shot of a Guinea savanna in West Africa here, and the interesting savannah woodlands of Australia here. All savannahs, as all grass dominated ecosystems.

Right, definition out of the way it's time to introduce the Big Four of the savannah (sorry, moved on from the original three, but still can't make five!) - the four processes that shape the savannah biome globally. With an understanding of each of these, you can start to understand savannah ecology and begin to guess at what drives the patterns you see in this biome.

Firstly, there's climate and particularly water availability. Temperature and rainfall/precipitation combine to define the earth's major biomes - to get savannah, you need to be warm and fairly dry. Too wet and you'll end up with a forest of one type or another, to dry and you'll head rapidly towards desert. In fact, globally the savannah biome tends to dominate in tropical areas with rainfall above about 400mm, and below something between 1400 and 1650mm. Within this range, depending on how the other big processes combine, you'll probably get savannah habitats of one form or another - though how they look depends exactly where you are on the rainfall gradient. And, of course, understanding seasonal rainfall patterns are vital to understanding the seasonal movements of wildlife.

Three processes in one! Wildebeest near Naabi in Serengeti are gathering in the rainy season when surface water is drinkable to graze the nutrient rich grasslands of the short-grass plains. The impact of so many grazers is extreme!

Secondly, there's the impact of animals - grazing and browsing in particular. Savannahs are often full of animals - it's why people come to visit after all! And the impact of all those animals is not to be underestimated - take them away and the savannah can change dramatically from grasslands to woodlands and even (depending on the other processes) forest. Animal impacts can be seen all over the savannah and again, we'll visit these issues in subsequent posts.

Thirdly, there's fire. Savannahs burn and always have done so - today, many fires are deliberately set as part of the management, but people have probably been burning savannahs as long as there have been people around and before that lightning would have set fires naturally - probably about every 3-6 years we think. This is an ecosystem that has evolved with a constant presence of fire, the trees regrow, the grass regrows and (most) of the animals are perfectly capable of escaping fires by running or hiding in holes, etc. But fire frequency and intensity can certainly shape the savannah and it's a vitally important process to understand.

Finally, there are nutrients. Many savannahs are found on ancient and highly nutrient poor soils where every little patch of nutrients will be highly valued by something. Other areas are on recent volcanic and nutrient-rich soils, providing ideal grazing opportunities and different niches for vegetation types. Where nutrients are found (and how they get moved about) dramatically shapes the ecology of the savannah biome from the small scale of termite mounds to the larger scale of soil types, determining seasonal patterns of movement for animals and many of the habitat differences found from place to place.

And that's it! Future posts will develop all these issues further, but it's a great start in savannah ecology to have in mind the processes that shape the biome before we look too far at each one.