A century of change in Kenya's mammal communities: increased richness and decreased uniqueness in six protected areas.

ABSTRACT: The potential for large-scale biodiversity losses as a result of climate change and human impact presents major challenges for ecology and conservation science. Governments around the world have established national parks and wildlife reserves to help protect biodiversity, but there are few studies on the long-term consequences of this strategy. We use Kenya as a case study to investigate species richness and other attributes of mammal communities in 6 protected areas over the past century. Museum records from African expeditions that comprehensively sampled mammals from these same areas in the early 1900's provide a baseline for evaluating changes in species richness and community structure over time. We compare species lists assembled from archived specimens (1896-1950) to those of corre

SUBMITTER: Toth AB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3981716 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature