Date of Graduation

5-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Biology

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Biological Sciences

Advisor/Mentor

Villasenor, Amelia

Committee Member

Alverson, Andrew

Second Committee Member

Zhuang, Xuan

Third Committee Member

D'Eugenio, Daniela

Abstract

The connection between mammalian behavior in national parks and human-driven environmental change outside national parks is tenuous. National parks are often considered the last vestiges of natural space, yet they are created and maintained by humans. South Luangwa National Park (SLNP) at the southern end of the East African Rift System (EARS) is a microcosm of this global problem. EARS is a biodiverse region made up of numerous smaller branches. In the Luangwa Valley, this biodiversity has been protected through conservation historically, but dynamic geopolitical forces have affected the relationship between large mammals and humans by extracting humans to create SLNP. Understanding the mammalian diets of megafauna (e.g., large animals such as elephants >44kg) in the SLNP will provide a means of understanding variation in one aspect of mammal behavior that may be affected by changing animal-human relationships. This study develops a stable isotope baseline for carbon and oxygen variation in 61 enamel specimens from nine large mammal species like hippopotamuses, elephants, and buffalo. These stable isotopes reveal information about mammal interactions with the environment. We also consider ecological changes in animal diets that may have been due to human conservation decisions or ecological change that affect mammals and humans who depend on subsistence practices in the region. For example, though the region is classified as a woodland, most of the nine mammal species sampled show diets that are classified as grazers or mixed feeders. This could represent the decrease in wooded vegetation due to poaching that occurred intensely in the past 50 years. Animals with high human animal conflicts, like hippos and lions, have high oxygen isotope variation that could indicate that they visit a wide variety of locations from inside and outside the park. This combination of ecological and historical information has implications for both human evolution, which depends on national parks to represent ecosystems that are untouched by humans, and conservation ecology.

Keywords

Biological Anthropology; enamel; Luangwa Zambia; carbon isotope; oxygen isotope; Mammal

Download

Share

COinS