Ants, rodents and seed predation in Proteaceae

Many species of Cape Proteaceae have seeds dispersed by ants. Ants may reduce seed prédation by rapidly transporting and burying seeds in their nests. Three field experiments using ant and vertebrate exclosures were set up to determine whether prédation of Mimetes pauciflorus and Leucospermum glabrum fruits is significant, whether ants reduce it, and whether the food body (elaiosome) is important in the interaction. Results showed that seed prédation could be as high as 100%, but that ants usually discover and remove seeds before vertebrates. Significantly fewer seeds were dispersed by ants when elaiosomes were removed. Vertebrate removal rates also declined. Laboratory experiments with caged small mammals showed that intact seeds were found more readily than seeds from which elaiosomes had been removed and that seed discovery improved with experience. Different species varied in their ability to detect seeds. Our results suggest that seed dispersal by ants has a direct effect on the number of seeds entering the soil seed bank by reducing prédation, that myrmecochorous seeds produce a signal which attracts both ants and small mammals, and that once seeds are buried in ant nests predation is probably minimal

Conservation business: sustaining Africa's future

Protected areas in Africa are threatened by a lack of funds to conduct their work effectively and by extremely poor communities that surround their resource-rich areas. We believe that conservation staff suffer from mental blocks. They assume that business and profitability reflect unethical processes that destroy natural resources. We developed a workshop process that allows conservationists to integrate entrepreneurial thinking with conservation principles and ethics. We measured perceptions both before and after such a workshop to assess the impact of the process. The process assisted conservationists at the Southern African Wildlife College to develop the integrated mental frameworks that are required to develop conservation into a sustainable business. The group internalised the new mental framework, whereby conservation and business, when integrated in an ethical manner, are viewed as virtually synonymous. The group also identified many innovative ways in which they could derive sustainable income from their natural resources while simultaneously achieving their conservation objectives

Reply to the comments from the Southern African Wildlife College (SAWC)

The SAWC as an organisation has a laudable and major role to play on the African continent

Mammals of the Kammanassie Mountains, southern Cape Province

The mammal fauna of the Kammanassie Mountain State Forest Reserve and Mountain Catchment Area was censused in the high-rainfall southeastern sector and low-rainfall northwestern sector from 2 -12 February, 1979. Collecting yielded 287 specimens of 17 species of small mammals, while the presence of a further 16 species of larger mammals was confirmed. Mean trapping success was low (2,0%) which reflects the low density of most species. Of the 10 species of small mammals collected in the southeastern sector Acomys subspinosus and Otomys irroratus were abundant, while Rhadomys pumilio, Praomys verreauxi and Myosorex varius were common; the other five species collected were rare. In the northwestern sector the species composition and relative density of each differed. Here Aethomys namaquensis was abundant, R. pumilio common, and five other species (including A. subspinosus and O. irroratus) rare. Few carnivores occur. Stomach samples of collected specimens yielded information on feeding habits; species vary considerably in their diet. Twenty-four species of both large and small mammals occur in the southeastern part, and 25 in the northwestern sector; 17 species are common to both