The CASE partner for this project is Save the Elephants
Elephants are key players in many ecosystems, and indeed were so globally if mammoths are included. They are also under threat, with forecasted climate changes in Africa likely to seriously affect African elephant (and biotope) ecology by altering food availability and quality as well as water supplies. Moreover, increasing heatwaves will directly affect the elephant’s metabolism, which is already temperature-challenged. Changes to the climate are therefore expected to challenge and potentially even kill off some populations, with implications for the wider biodiversity of African savannah ecosystems.
Despite their significance, surprisingly little is known about the ecology and physiology of extant Elephas, making it difficult to predict or mitigate the impacts of climate change on these iconic species. Elephants are large, round, long-lived vegetarians with an immense dietary range. These traits carry considerable costs. Chief among these is that elephants require tremendous throughput of forage to power their huge muscles, which together with digestion, generate body heat that is difficult to shed even under optimal thermal conditions, and cooling requires copious amounts of water. The typical diet of African elephants is highly variable, often very selective, and constrained both by habitat and seasonal availability. Water can also be a limiting resource.
This project would examine two aspects of elephant biology that remain particularly underexplored yet important for understanding how elephant’s might deal with climate change: (i) how variation in diet and metabolism within the gut might impact their health and survival, and (ii) how shifting foraging patterns will alter the diversity of typical savannah ecosystems. The student would study a large population of African Savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana) in Northern Kenya to which we have access, that are well known from decades of radio-tracking, monitoring and detailed studies of behaviour and ecology. They would leverage state-of-the-art technologies to observe in minute detail the foraging behaviour of elephants (input) as well as collecting and analysing the faeces (output) of genotyped individuals with known history to characterise their diet and gut microbiome, using metagenomic sequencing methods. The gut microbiome plays a key role in determining the energy and nutrients mammals can extract from their food, particularly hindgut fermenters like elephants. Moreover, recent research has revealed that gut microbial communities respond to changes in the host’s thermal environment, and via their interplay with host metabolism can also influence thermoregulation. As such, interactions between diet, the microbiome and physiology may be important determinants of how elephants cope with climate change.
This project will test a number of hypotheses, hopefully leading to a more comprehensive understanding of elephant metabolism, physiology and health, and informing on the role of elephants in African savannah ecosystems, today and tomorrow. The findings may also inform tangible actions to mitigate undesirable foraging-related behaviours that generate human-elephant conflict, such as bark-stripping or crop-raiding, as well as more broadly informing biodiversity (ecotope) management.
If interested please contact fritz.vollrath@biology.ox.ac.uk and sarah.knowles@biology.ox.ac.uk
