Publications

Seasonal variations in temperature and moisture are strong drivers of biological activity and diversity. Termites are an important insect group previously shown to respond to seasonal variation, but results are mixed with unclear patterns across habitat...

The advent and recent advances of Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) have enabled accurate measurement of 3D ecosystem structure. Here, we review insights gained through the application of LiDAR to animal ecology studies, revealing the fundamental...

Questions
Termite mounds of the genus Macrotermes are prominent features in African savannas, forming nutrient hotspots that support greater plant diversity, which is of higher nutritional value than the surrounding savanna matrix. However, little is...

Termite mounds contribute to the spatial heterogeneity of ecological processes in many savannas, but the underlying patterns and determinants of mound distributions remain poorly understood. Using the Carnegie Airborne Observatory (CAO), we mapped the...

One of the many ecological processes expected to undergo alteration due to global change is the decomposition of organic matter, with little known concerning the effects that changing disturbance regimes may have. Fire, a critical process in many habitats...

Although termites are ecosystem engineers in tropical and sub‐tropical environments, the study of termite ecology is often constrained by sampling difficulties and a lack of established sampling protocols, particularly for savannas. The efficiency and...

1. Fire is an important disturbance in African savannas where it is generally assumed that high levels of pyrodiversity (variation in aspects of the fire regime) are necessary to maintain high levels of biodiversity. There is, however, little empirical...

David Bowman proposes that elephants should be introduced into Australia as a cost-effective way to control invasive gamba grass, a major source of wildfire fuel (Nature 482, 30; 2012). But managing the elephants could be more expensive than, say...

While tropical savannas and grasslands typically attract less attention than temperate systems (see, e.g. Gaston et al. 1998 and references therein indicating the general lack of biological data at low latitudes), they represent one of the dominant biomes...