Wildebeest – large African antelopes with distinctively curved horns – are famous for their great migrations on the grasslands of eastern and southern Africa. One hundred and fifty years ago, they migrated in huge numbers across the continent, in search of grazing and water and to find suitable areas for calving. Migration is crucial to sustain their large populations. But their routes are being interrupted by roads, oil and gas pipelines, railway lines, fences, cities, livestock and farmland. Even this migration is now threatened by plans for new roads and railways, uncontrolled and unplanned developments and exponential human population growth around the edges of the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem. We’ve now found, in new research, that the disruption to the migratory route has genetic implications for the animals’ longer term survival. Our results show that wildebeest populations that no longer migrate are less genetically healthy than those that continue to migrate. Because their populations aren’t mixing with other wildebeest groups, they are more inbred and genetically isolated. We expect this to lead to lower survival, reduced fertility and other debilitating health effects.
SOURCE: THE CONVERSATION
