Movement Ecology of Afrotropical Forest Mammals

This book brings a unique perspective to animal movement studies because all studies come from African tropical environments where the great diversity, either biological and structurally (trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes), present the animals with several options to fulfil their basic needs. These conditions have forced the evolution of unique movement patterns and ecological strategies. The book follows on our previous book "Movement Ecology of Neotropical Forest Mammals" but focuses on tropical African forests. Movement is an essential process in the life of all organisms. Animals move because they are looking for primary needs such as food, water, cover, mating and to avoid predators. Understanding the causes and consequences of animal movement is not an easy task for behavioural ecologists. Many animals are shy, move in secretive ways and are very sensible to human presence, therefore, studying the movements of mammals in tropical environments presents logistical and methodologicalchallenges. However, researchers have recently started to be solved these challenges and exciting new information is emerging. In this book we are compiling a set of extraordinary studies where researchers have used new technology and the strongest methodological approaches to understand movement patterns in wild African forest mammals. This second book should inspire early career researchers to investigate wild mammal´s movements in some of the most amazing forest in the world: African tropical forests.    

List of contents

1. What do we know about mammal movement in African tropical forests?.- 2. Movements patterns and population dynamics of giant forest hog groups in Kibale National Park, Uganda.- 3. Forest elephant movements in Central Africa - megafauna need megaspaces.- 4. Elephant movements, abundance and use of water sources in Kibale National Park, Uganda.- 5. Movement ecology and evolutionary history of forest buffalo.- 6. Site fidelity and home range shifts in a leaf-eating primate.- 7. Primate movements across the nutritional landscapes of Africa.- 8. Conditions facilitating a "landscape of fear from disease" in African forest mammals.- 9. Do seasonally frugivory and cognition shape foraging movements in wild western gorillas?.- 10. Females Move in Tight Crowds, Males Roam: Society and Movement Ecology of Mandrills.- 11. Linking Movement Ecology to Conservation Biology.

About the author

Rafael Reyna-Hurtado is a Mexican biologist that has studied tropical ungulates since 1997 in Mesoamerica and Uganda. Rafael obtained a Master degree and PhD degree in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation in University of Florida, USA. He also conducted a three years postdoctoral study in McGill University, Montreal, Canada with focus in East African terrestrial forest mammals. Rafael has focused his research on movement ecology of social species, particularly the white-lipped peccary in the Calakmul forest of Mexico and the giant forest hog in Kibale National Park, Uganda. Rafael is a professor of El Colegio de la Frontera Sur in Campeche city, Southern Mexico where he has formed a team of highly qualified students that are conducting studies in movement patterns of tropical ungulates in all Mesoamerica. 

Colin Chapman is a Canadian Biologist who has worked in the tropics for over 40 years and has applied his research to conservation. Colin received hisjoint Ph.D. in the Departments of Anthropology and Zoology at the University of Alberta. He spent 2 years at McGill and 3 years at Harvard University doing post-doctoral research. Since 1990 he has served as an Honourary lecturer in the Department of Zoology at Makerere University, Uganda and since 1995 he has been a Conservation Fellow with the Wildlife Conservation Society.  Colin also served as a faculty member in Zoology at the University of Florida for 11 years and returned to McGill in 2004 where he held a Canada Research Chair Tier 1 position in Primate Ecology and Conservation, in 2019 move to George Washington University to allow him to spend more time on conservation and then in 2022 he shifted to Vancouver Island University to facilitate his work on the board of African Wildlife Foundation (Canada).  He is a Wilson Center Fellow, Killam Research Fellow, Velan Foundation Awardee for Humanitarian Service, and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2018 he was awarded the Konrad Adenauer Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and an Office of an Academician, Northwest University, Xi'an, China. For the last 30+ years, Colin has conducted research in Kibale National Park, Uganda. During this time, he has not just been an academic, but has devoted great effort to help the rural communities, establishing schools, clinics, a mobile clinic, and ecotourism projects. 

Mario Melletti is an Italian free-lance wildlife biologist and member of the African Buffalo Initiative Group and Wild Pig Specialist Group both part of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). During his PhD studies, he was affiliated with the Department of Animal and Human Biology, at the University of Rome "La Sapienza", Italy and with the Department of Conservation Biology of the Estación Biólogica de Doñana (CSIC-EBD) Seville, Spain. For 10 years he has been studying the ecology and behavior of the forest buffalo in Central Africa. Mario has conducted research on a number of other large mammals collaborating to several projects and surveys in Africa. He worked in several African countries including Burkina Faso, C.A.R., Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. He started to collaborate with the Cambridge University Press in 2010 as editor of a book series on conservation and management of large mammals and in 2020 he joined the Springer Nature publisher. He has authored a total of seven books and about 60 scientific publications.

Product details

• Assisted by: Colin A Chapman (Editor), Colin A. Chapman (Editor), Mario Melletti (Editor), Rafael Reyna-Hurtado (Editor)
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 25.04.2023
• EAN: 9783031270291
• ISBN: 978-3-0-3127029-1
• No. of pages: 196
• Dimensions: 155 mm x 15 mm x 235 mm
• Illustrations: XVII, 196 p. 42 illus., 36 illus. in color.
• Subject: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Biology > Ecology