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A comparison of two mountain gorilla habitats in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda
Author(s) -
Nkurunungi John Bosco,
Ganas Jessica,
Robbins Martha M.,
Stanford Craig B.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
african journal of ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.499
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1365-2028
pISSN - 0141-6707
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2028.2004.00523.x
Subject(s) - national park , habitat , vegetation (pathology) , shrub , ecology , altitude (triangle) , endangered species , geography , abundance (ecology) , gorilla , phenology , herbaceous plant , biology , medicine , paleontology , geometry , mathematics , pathology
Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda, is a small protected area (331 km 2 ) within which there is large climatic and altitudinal variation. Therefore we compared habitat types and forest composition between two locations to investigate differences that may influence ecological conditions for large mammals, including endangered mountain gorillas. We demonstrate that there is considerable intersite variation in habitat types and spatial and temporal availability of vegetation resources of which the most apparent are the differences in species composition of plants and fruit availability. Buhoma (the lower altitude site) has a greater diversity of plant species and higher tree and shrub densities, yet has a much lower density of herbaceous vegetation eaten by gorillas compared with Ruhija. Fruit availability is significantly higher throughout the year in Buhoma compared with Ruhija. Both sites exhibit seasonal variation in fruit availability although they do not follow the same seasonal pattern, perhaps because of inherent asynchronous phenological differences amongst individual tree species. The results of this study are important because distribution and abundance of both terrestrial herbaceous vegetation and fruit resources are believed to influence aspects of feeding ecology for large mammals.