Elephant population survey counts across southern Africa protected areas
Data files
Jan 02, 2024 version files 129.88 KB
Abstract
The influence of protected areas on the growth of African savannah elephant populations is inadequately known. Across southern Africa, elephant numbers grew at 0.16% annually for the past quarter century. Locally, much depends on metapopulation dynamics — the size and connections of individual populations. Population numbers in large, connected and strictly protected areas typically increased, were less variable from year to year, and suffered less from poaching. Conversely, populations in buffer areas that are less protected but still connected have more variation in growth from year to year. Buffer areas also differed more in their growth rates, likely due to more threats and dispersal opportunities in the face of such dangers. Isolated populations showed consistently high growth due to a lack of emigration. This suggests that “fortress” conservation generally maintains high growth, while anthropogenic-driven source-sink dynamics within connected conservation clusters drive stability in core areas and variability in buffers.
README: Elephant population survey counts across southern Africa protected areas
https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.s1rn8pkf9
Repository for data and supplemental material from "Protecting and connecting landscapes stabilises populations of the Endangered savannah elephant". Materials include individual survey counts, calculated growth rates, data sources, and detailed descriptions of elephant populations within each cluster (regional grouping).
Description of the data tables
Survey Estimates.csv: Full list of extracted survey estimates of elephant populations from 1995-2020
- Cluster No: Cluster ID (see Fig 1A and Table 1 of main text)
- Cluster: Cluster name
- Population: Name of protected area
- Year: Year of survey
- Structure: Core/Buffer/Insular (see main text for definitions)
- Estimate: Reported population size
- Upper/Lower.95CL: Upper and lower confidence limits (if provided) (NA indicates data not provided by source)
- Survey Area: Reported area (NA indicates data not provided by source)
Population Summary.csv: Aggregation of population calculations for each protected area
- Cluster Number: Cluster ID (see Fig 1A and Table 1 of main text)
- Cluster: Cluster name
- Population: Name of protected area
- IUCN: IUCN protected area category (I-VI, NA)
- Size_km2: Area (km2) provided by World Database of Protected Areas (NA indicates area discrepancies in boundaries between WDPA and reported boundaries)
- Year: Most recent survey year
- Estimate: Most recent estimate
- CL: 95% Confidence limit distance
- Survey Area: Reported area from most recent survey (NA indicates data not provided by source)
- Density: Elephant density (Estimate/Size_km2) (NA when no area available)
- Period: Range of years surveyed
- Structure: Core/Buffer/Insular (see main text for definitions)
- Protected: Primary (IUCN categories I-IV)/Secondary (IUCN categories V, VI, NA)
- Connection: Connected or Insular (see main text for definitions)
- Category: Large Core/Small Core/Large Buffer/Small Buffer/Insular (see main text for definitions)
- n: Number of surveys
- MeanEst: Average Population Size across surveys
- SDEst: Standard deviation of survey estimates
- Growth: Annual population growth rate
- SDLam: Standard deviation of annual population growth rate
- F: F-statistic of model fit
- df: Degrees of freedom
- p: p-value of model fit
Data Sources.xslx: List of data sources organized by cluster
Sharing/Access information
Links to other publicly accessible locations of the data:
Data was derived from sources listed in Data Sources.xslx
Methods
Data collated from the African elephant database and additional literature. Full list of sources provided in Supplemental Material 3.