Gorongosa 2024-FULL-FINAL - Flipbook - Page 20
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GORONGOSA SP ECIAL
Only 10 to 20 percent
of Earth’s species have
been formally described.
the songs and sounds of bats, birds, amphibians, and insects, and observe
the movement and activity patterns of elephants. They also study external
processes such as fire to better understand their value in rejuvenating the
landscape and in maintaining biodiversity. The Gorongosa Map of Life is
the first inventory of its kind in any protected area in Africa.
So far, the project has documented more than 7,700 species, but scientists predict that there are at least 75,000 multicellular organisms in
the park, probably more. “Every time we go on a survey,” says Naskrecki,
“we usually add about 1,000 species to that list.” His teams have found a
previously undescribed rare spiny crustacean that hasn’t yet been named,
and a horseshoe bat—at only 5 grams, the smallest in Africa—among other
creatures. They have also recorded heretofore undocumented interactions
among species, including an earwig that lives on giant pouched rats, crustaceans that thrive inside fungal gardens of termites, and parasitic bugs
that nest in the fur of bats.
Traditionally, scientists have studied connections between any two
given species. What sets the Gorongosa Map of Life apart is that participating scientists can investigate multi-trophic interactions that involve
several levels of life, from plants to herbivores to predators, parasitoids,
or pathogens. “The bigger this database becomes, the more data we have,
the more powerful it is and the more complex questions you can ask,”
Naskrecki says.
Understanding natural biodiversity can shed light on what needs to
be done to restore degraded landscapes, says Marc Stalmans, a landscape
ecologist who directs scientific research at the park. He says it’s important
to understand how landscapes are destroyed—both to protect what’s left
and to rebuild a more livable world, especially in the face of climate change.
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