Melissa's Adventures as a Budding Conservationist: Apple leaf tree project and Camera trapping project

Hello! We are in Skukuza for another week before heading off to Wits Rural, Hamakuya, and Shigwedzi. I just completed collecting field data for my second field project and we are working on finishing the report for the ecology of big trees project. For the ecology of big trees project, we looked at one of the most dominant species of big trees in the basaltic region- the species is commonly referred to as the Apple leaf tree because the leaves crunch like an apple when you crush them. We collected data and tagged 175 trees and then began analysis on the elephant impact on the species, as well as the demographic resiliency and individual resiliency of the trees. We then compared the Apple leaf results to two of the other big trees in the area (Marula and Knobthorn) because there has been extensive research already on those species. From some of our initial results, the species responded well to elephant damage (bark stripping) on an individual level, but we found that larger trees are more likely to have canopy breakage (caused by elephants) that may be causing a bottleneck in the population. We found a majority of smaller seedlings and saplings, but it seemed that the species was struggling to get from the subadult to adult stage (within the contexts of our study). The primary reason for our study was to determine if these trees were in trouble or not because there seems to be a decline in big tree numbers in the region that we collected data. From our findings, it appears that the struggle to get to adulthood may be caused by fire disturbance (because the basalts have a high grass biomass and is rather open, so the intensity and frequency of fires is high) or elephant disturbances, but it is probably a combination of both.

I also have started my FFP (faculty field project) on Camera Trapping. Camera traps were invented in the 19th century by George Shiras and he became famous for having some of the first wildlife photos ever published in National Geographic. He developed a camera trap using a trip wire and magnesium flash bulb. Camera traps are great because the goal is to capture the animal in their natural habitat, without the influence of human disturbance. However, we (and George Shiras) discovered that it is much harder to take human impact out of the field. Shiras became famous for photos like the ones shown below because the flash bulb he used was so loud that it scared the deer away - so all of his photos look like flying deer:

We found in our study that almost all of the animals (except impala) noticed the cameras because of our smell, which made it harder to truly capture them in their natural habitat. So, as much as I would like to use this project for a behavioral study, without a long term camera trap, we are unable to look at behavioral studies. Our main objectives include determining the effectiveness of camera traps and deciding methods that seem best for setting up the different types of cameras. We used field scanners that took photos on one minute intervals as well as motion sensor cameras and set 2 of each type up at 5 different watering holes. We have A LOT of data and are working on going through some of it now, hopefully to be working on analysis tomorrow.

We did get to see some really amazing things, even though the camera traps changed the behavior of some animals. I'm hoping to get one myself and set it up at home to see some of the wildlife in our backyard. Here are some of the photos we've gotten off of our cameras: