Edge degradation squeezes wildlife into the ecosystem core
Veldhuis et al. drew on forty years of data to show that human land use pressing on the boundaries of the 40,000 km² ecosystem has compressed grazers into the protected core. The compression reduced grass fuel and fire, weakened soil carbon and nitrogen retention, and made primary production less responsive to rainfall — a loss of resilience inside the protected area caused entirely from outside it.
Observed — measured or witnessed, with the observation cited.
Subjects
- Serengeti National Park · national park · Tanzania
- Maasai Mara National Reserve · game reserve · Kenya
- Serengeti–Mara Rainfall Gradient · ecological phenomenon · Tanzania; Kenya · not located
- Blue Wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) · species · Tanzania; Kenya · not located
Evidence
Verified — Every field is supported by a cited authoritative source.
Cross-boundary human impacts compromise the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem
Forty years of data show that land-use degradation at the ecosystem's edges has squeezed grazers into the protected core, reducing fire, soil carbon and nitrogen retention, and weakening the response of primary production to rainfall
Science (AAAS) · 29 March 2019 · Verified
Veldhuis M.P. et al. (2019) Science 363(6434): 1424–1428, doi:10.1126/science.aav0564; open copy at http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/183914/1/183914.pdf
Recorded on Serengeti National Park
- Serengeti National Park established on land used by Maasai pastoralists
- Serengeti closed to residence; Ngorongoro Conservation Area created and Maasai evicted from the plains
- Rinderpest disappears from the Serengeti–Mara ecosystem
- The wildebeest population irrupts from roughly 250,000 to over a million
- The Mara–Loita migration collapses by about 81%
- Edge degradation squeezes wildlife into the ecosystem core
- Kenya bans sport hunting nationwide
- Serengeti National Park inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List
- Drought kills roughly a quarter of the wildebeest population
- AI satellite survey returns fewer than 600,000, and is contested
- TAWIRI Aerial Point Survey estimates 1,366,109 wildebeest
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- TAWIRI Aerial Point Survey estimates 1,366,109 wildebeest · 2023
- AI satellite survey returns fewer than 600,000, and is contested · 2022–2023 imagery; published 2025
- Drought kills roughly a quarter of the wildebeest population · 1993–1994
- Serengeti National Park inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List · 1981
- The Mara–Loita migration collapses by about 81% · 1977–2016
- Kenya bans sport hunting nationwide · 1977
- The wildebeest population irrupts from roughly 250,000 to over a million · 1963–1977
- Rinderpest disappears from the Serengeti–Mara ecosystem · c. 1960–1964