Southern Serengeti Short-Grass Plains

Assembled from 19 blocks · 3 evidence · 20 related

1. Story
2. The treeless short-grass plains of the south-eastern Serengeti and the adjoining western Ngorongoro Conservation Area, centred on the Ndutu and Salei areas. They sit at the dry end of the ecosystem's rainfall gradient, receiving on the order of 400–500 mm a year, and their soils are shallow and derived from volcanic ash from the Crater Highlands, which makes the grass unusually rich in phosphorus and calcium. This is where the herds concentrate in the wet season and where essentially all calving happens. The plains have no gazetted boundary of their own; they straddle the park and conservation-area line.
3. Knowledge
4. Southern Serengeti Short-Grass Plains
5. Ngorongoro Conservation Area — Western Plains
6. Connections
7. Blue Wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus)
8. Blue Wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus)
9. Ngorongoro Conservation Area — Western Plains
10. Synchronised Wildebeest Calving
11. Volcanic Ash Soils of the Southern Plains
12. The calving pulse on the short-grass plains
13. Southern Serengeti Short-Grass Plains
14. Serengeti National Park inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List
15. The calving pulse on the short-grass plains
16. Evidence
17. 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
18. Continuous multi-decade monitoring and GPS telemetry establish the seasonal route, timing and drivers of the migratory circuit
19. Dry-season food supply, not predation, regulates the Serengeti wildebeest population — demonstrated across the post-rinderpest irruption, the 1977–1993 plateau and the 1993–94 drought die-off