US - Kenya Dissertation Enhancement: Maasai Settlement, Landscape Mosaics, and the Spatial Patterning of Vegetation and Wildlife in East African Savannas

Colorado State University, Fort Collins CO

Investigators

Abstract

0096706 Coughenour This dissertation enhancement grant supports a US graduate student, Mr. Jeffrey Worden, working under the guidance of Professor Michael Coughenour, with the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory at Colorado State University, to conduct a study in the Kajiado District of Kenya on the human-wildlife-vegetation interactions in an East African savanna. Much of Kenya's wildlife lives outside the official Maasailand conservation areas, and as a result it is inextricably linked to the Maasai pastoral herding patterns. But the Maasai's escalating use of land for pastoral purposes has resulted in a decline in both livestock and wildlife populations during the last 30 years. Worden hypothesizes that: 1) changes in Maasai settlements and escalating pastoral land use will show evidence of the process of sedentarization, which segregates areas of high intensity near populated areas from areas of intermediate and low usage; 2) the highest levels of vegetative complexity and heterogeneity will exist in intermediate areas of moderate pastoral land use; and 3) that wildlife density and diversity will be highest in the intermediate pastoral land usage areas. The study will be conducted in the Kajiado District, an area of East Africa that is noted for having a large amount of biological diversity as well as containing the cultural heritage of the Maasai. Three regional locations in unprotected areas of the Kajiado District will be examined using aerial imagery, field surveys, and local interviews. The collected data will be analyzed at multiple scales (local, landscape, and regional) to examine the overall hypothesis that vegetation diversity and landscape heterogeneity should be greater in areas of intermediate use by human populations. The results are expected to identify the impact that changing patterns of pastoral land use have on vegetation resources, as well as how the vegetation changes affect wildlife populations. Dr. Robin Reid and other researchers at the International Livestock Research Institute will provide guidance on this project to Mr. Worden. The results are expected to increase the current knowledge about landscape ecology and human-environment interactions of savanna and pastoral ecosytems, and should be of value to ecologists, social scientists, and resource managers. This project will also support an international research experience very early in the career of an outstanding graduate student. This project is being jointly funded by the Division of International Programs and the Division of Environmental Biology.