image: A cheetah and her cubs sit atop a termite mound in Kenya's Masai Mara Reserve. Termite mounds play many important functions in savanna and grassland ecosystems; cheetahs use them while hunting for good visibility. Note that the grass on the mound is greener than the surrounding grasses -- due to the high levels of nutrient and water availability on termite mounds, mounds are hotspots of vegetation growth. This material relates to a paper that appeared in the Feb. 6, 2015 issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by J.A. Bonachela at Princeton University in Princeton, NJ, and colleagues was titled, "Termite mounds can increase the robustness of dryland ecosystems to climatic change." view more
Credit: [Credit: Rob Pringle]