The calving pulse on the short-grass plains

Assembled from 62 blocks · 2 evidence · 32 related

1. Story
2. The herds concentrate on the ash-derived short-grass plains around Ndutu and the western Ngorongoro Conservation Area and the large majority of females calve within about three weeks. Figures of 400,000–500,000 calves circulate widely; they are derived from population size and pregnancy rate rather than counted, and shift with whichever census estimate is used.
3. Knowledge
4. Blue Wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus)
5. Southern Serengeti Short-Grass Plains
6. Synchronised Wildebeest Calving
7. Ngorongoro Conservation Area — Western Plains
8. Spotted Hyena (Crocuta crocuta)
9. Volcanic Ash Soils of the Southern Plains
10. The calving pulse on the short-grass plains
11. Connections
12. Synchronised Wildebeest Calving
13. Southern Serengeti Short-Grass Plains
14. Ngorongoro Conservation Area — Western Plains
15. Blue Wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus)
16. Volcanic Ash Soils of the Southern Plains
17. Spotted Hyena (Crocuta crocuta)
18. Volcanic Ash Soils of the Southern Plains
19. Southern Serengeti Short-Grass Plains
20. Spotted Hyena (Crocuta crocuta)
21. The rut
22. The calving pulse on the short-grass plains
23. Blue Wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus)
24. Blue Wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus)
25. Ngorongoro Conservation Area — Western Plains
26. Synchronised Wildebeest Calving
27. Volcanic Ash Soils of the Southern Plains
28. The calving pulse on the short-grass plains
29. Southern Serengeti Short-Grass Plains
30. Serengeti National Park inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List
31. The calving pulse on the short-grass plains
32. Serengeti–Mara Rainfall Gradient
33. Thomson's Gazelle (Eudorcas thomsonii)
34. Western Corridor and Grumeti Reserves
35. Southern Serengeti Short-Grass Plains
36. Serengeti National Park
37. Southern Serengeti Short-Grass Plains
38. Mara River
39. Plains Zebra (Equus quagga)
40. Nile Crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus)
41. Spotted Hyena (Crocuta crocuta)
42. Serengeti Biodiversity Programme
43. Rinderpest disappears from the Serengeti–Mara ecosystem
44. The wildebeest population irrupts from roughly 250,000 to over a million
45. Drought kills roughly a quarter of the wildebeest population
46. The Mara–Loita migration collapses by about 81%
47. Edge degradation squeezes wildlife into the ecosystem core
48. The rut
49. The calving pulse on the short-grass plains
50. The herds cross the Grumeti River in the western corridor
51. The Mara River crossings
52. TAWIRI Aerial Point Survey estimates 1,366,109 wildebeest
53. AI satellite survey returns fewer than 600,000, and is contested
54. Synchronised Wildebeest Calving
55. Southern Serengeti Short-Grass Plains
56. The calving pulse on the short-grass plains
57. Synchronised Wildebeest Calving
58. Blue Wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus)
59. The calving pulse on the short-grass plains
60. Evidence
61. Females exposed to playback of male rutting vocalisations were over three times more synchronous in expected time to mating than controls isolated from male stimuli, supplying a proximate mechanism for the calving pulse
62. Wildebeest distribution through the annual circuit can be reproduced from rainfall and the resulting flush of new vegetation growth, supporting rainfall as the proximate driver of movement