Using spot pattern recognition to examine population biology, evolutionary ecology, sociality, and movements of giraffes: a 70-year retrospective

Individual-based studies where animals are monitored through space and time enable explorations of ecology, demography, evolutionary biology, movements, and behavior. Here, we review 70 years of research on an endangered African herbivore, the giraffe, based on individual spot pattern recognition, and profile an example of a long-term photographic mark–recapture study of Masai giraffes in Tanzania. We illustrate how individual-based data can be used to examine the fitness consequences (variation in survival and reproduction) of extrinsic environmental factors or intrinsic traits in an evolutionary ecology framework. These data also allow the study of social structure, space use, life histories, and health. The giraffe offers an excellent opportunity to study dynamics of an ungulate species with a highly fission–fusion social system using spot pattern recognition

Wildlife movements and landscape connectivity in the Tarangire ecosystem

A fundamental condition for maintaining viable populations of wildlife is to ensure that animals can access resources. In landscapes where the boundaries of protected areas encompass only a fraction of annual home ranges, animal movement is often curtailed by human activities, often with negative population consequences. In the Tarangire Ecosystem (TE), wildlife generally aggregates in three main protected areas during the dry season (Tarangire and Lake Manyara National Parks, and Manyara Ranch Conservancy) and disperses to several other areas during the wet season. Connectivity between and within seasonal ranges in the ecosystem has generally become more restricted over time, though the apparent effects of these changes have been species-specific. Historical accounts of wildlife movement suggest that animals once moved over much larger areas than they do currently. In this chapter, we review historical information on wildlife movement and distributions in the TE and synthesize data on population genetic structure and individual movements from studies of elephants, giraffes, lions and wildebeests conducted over the past 25 years. Given the continued expansion of agricultural and urban areas, there is a need to coordinate efforts across land management agencies and local governments to ensure that wildlife can continue to move across the landscape