An Assessment of Spatial Variation in Surface Water Dependence Among Selected Savanna Ungulates During the Wet Season in Serengeti National Park.

Komba, Regius S. (2022) An Assessment of Spatial Variation in Surface Water Dependence Among Selected Savanna Ungulates During the Wet Season in Serengeti National Park. Masters thesis, The Open University of Tanzania.

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Abstract

Water uptake by savanna ungulate species can be enhanced by drinking surface water, food intake or metabolism. However, the savanna ungulate species differ in terms of water dependence in the wet season and have less been studied and not well known. In any attempt to address the problem, it involved working on three objectives namely; examine the species differentials in dung moisture content in savanna ungulates, determine the spatial variation in dung moisture content between savanna ungulates in the zones and assess the relationship between dung moisture content and the distance to permanent water source. In this study we collected fecal samples from six savanna ungulates species of buffalo, zebra, eland, hartebeest, warthog and Thomson’s gazelle in three different habitats related to water availability in the northern, central and southern zones of Serengeti National Park. In quantifying the net weights, it showed significant variations in the mean percentages in dung moisture content. The maximum mean percentage in dung moisture content was observed in buffalo which ranked the highest indicating water dependence whereas the minimum one was observed in Thomson’s gazelle which ranked the lowest depicting less water dependence. The statistical tests revealed that, the central and southern zones indicated high variations in the availability of quality surface water. However, the relationship between moisture contents for savanna ungulates and distances to permanent water sources could not significantly affect the moisture content for the studied species. Keywords: surface water, dependence, savanna ungulates, moisture contents, wet season

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