Elephant movement can provide objective measure of seasonal boundaries

Elephant movement in response to changes in rainfall patterns can be used to determine biologically relevant boundaries between seasons, as opposed to commonly used arbitrary definitions of seasons. The full report is published June 27 in the open access journal PLoS ONE.

Elephant movement patterns are known to be affected by seasonal changes in rainfall. In different years, though, rainfall patterns can vary, and it can be difficult to determine seasonal boundaries, so the authors of the study, led by Patricia Birkett of the Amarula Elephant Research Programme at the University of Kwazulu-Natal in South Africa, investigated the correlation between elephant movements and rainfall by tracking the movement speed of 14 female elephants in Kruger National Park from 2006 to 2010. They found that the speed changed sharply at the end of both the wet and dry seasons each year, suggesting that movement patterns could provide an objective definition of seasonal boundaries. Birkettt explains, "These seasonal boundaries are relevant to the specific aspects of the environment that we are interested in understanding or managing."

Citation: Birkett PJ, Vanak AT, Muggeo VMR, Ferreira SM, Slotow R (2012) Animal Perception of Seasonal Thresholds: Changes in Elephant Movement in Relation to Rainfall Patterns. PLoS ONE 7(6): e38363. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0038363

Financial Disclosure: Funding for this study was received through a donation from the Amarula Trust (http://www.amarulatrust.com/). UKZN and The National Research Foundation, South Africa, provided funding for PJB (GUN: 61470 to RS) (http://www.nrf.ac.za/) and a post-doctoral fellowship to ATV. There are no constraints from the funders on use or dissemination of the data, or influence on the results or conclusions. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interest Statement: Dr. Sam Ferreira is a research manager and employee of SANParks Scientific Services, Kruger National Park. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

PLEASE LINK TO THE SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE IN ONLINE VERSIONS OF YOUR REPORT (URL goes live after the embargo ends): http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0038363

Disclaimer: This press release refers to upcoming articles in PLoS ONE. The releases have been provided by the article authors and/or journal staff. Any opinions expressed in these are the personal views of the contributors, and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of PLoS. PLoS expressly disclaims any and all warranties and liability in connection with the information found in the release and article and your use of such information.

PLoS ONE is the first journal of primary research from all areas of science to employ a combination of peer review and post-publication rating and commenting, to maximize the impact of every report it publishes. PLoS ONE is published by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), the open-access publisher whose goal is to make the world's scientific and medical literature a public resource.

All works published in PLoS ONE are Open Access. Everything is immediately available—to read, download, redistribute, include in databases and otherwise use—without cost to anyone, anywhere, subject only to the condition that the original authors and source are properly attributed. For more information about PLoS ONE relevant to journalists, bloggers and press officers, including details of our press release process and our embargo policy, see the everyONE blog at http://everyone.plos.org/media.