Invertebrates: The Consequence of Burning

music
ambience: African Wildlife

We’re listening to sounds from the Mkuze Game Reserve, one of South Africa’s best known and best managed conservation areas. Today invertebrate scientists are doing ecological research here which could challenge long held notions of park management. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet.

Dr. Tanza Crouch studies invertebrate life at the Reserve.

“There are various management practices that are being employed in conservation areas which are of particular interest. These are the kinds of things that reserve managers are doing because it’s good, generally speaking, for farming large hairy animals — and those include, bush clearing, very rigorous, burning regimes in reserves which are very important for maintaining a particular kind of grazing land. But burning, as you can well imagine, has really important consequences for small organisms that perhaps do not have the same mobility as larger animals.”

Dr. Crouch says that game managers in Africa routinely burn grasslands to maintain habitat for large animals like antelope. But she and other scientists from the Durban Natural Science Museum in South Africa believe that this practice may have deadly consequences for isolated populations of tiny invertebrates.

“Spiders, millipedes, particularly snails, you can imagine, would suffer really greatly from extensive burning. So knowing what those organisms requirements are, are very important. Knowing if we do something to what this organism requires in it’s daily existence, are we going to lose it or not?”

We’ll hear more about invertebrates and their importance to healthy ecosystems in future programs. Our thanks to the Earthwatch Institute. Pulse of the Planet is presented with support provided by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.

music

Invertebrates: The Consequence of Burning

In South Africa, researchers are finding that invertebrates are threatened by game preserve practices. This discovery could change the way that nature preserves are managed worldwide.
Air Date:03/04/2002
Scientist:
Transcript:


music
ambience: African Wildlife

We're listening to sounds from the Mkuze Game Reserve, one of South Africa's best known and best managed conservation areas. Today invertebrate scientists are doing ecological research here which could challenge long held notions of park management. I'm Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet.

Dr. Tanza Crouch studies invertebrate life at the Reserve.

"There are various management practices that are being employed in conservation areas which are of particular interest. These are the kinds of things that reserve managers are doing because it’s good, generally speaking, for farming large hairy animals -- and those include, bush clearing, very rigorous, burning regimes in reserves which are very important for maintaining a particular kind of grazing land. But burning, as you can well imagine, has really important consequences for small organisms that perhaps do not have the same mobility as larger animals."

Dr. Crouch says that game managers in Africa routinely burn grasslands to maintain habitat for large animals like antelope. But she and other scientists from the Durban Natural Science Museum in South Africa believe that this practice may have deadly consequences for isolated populations of tiny invertebrates.

"Spiders, millipedes, particularly snails, you can imagine, would suffer really greatly from extensive burning. So knowing what those organisms requirements are, are very important. Knowing if we do something to what this organism requires in it’s daily existence, are we going to lose it or not?"

We'll hear more about invertebrates and their importance to healthy ecosystems in future programs. Our thanks to the Earthwatch Institute. Pulse of the Planet is presented with support provided by the National Science Foundation. I'm Jim Metzner.

music