DOI: 10.5061/dryad.h4r1003
title: Data from: Cascading impacts of large-carnivore extirpation in an African ecosystem

description: The world’s largest carnivores are declining and now occupy mere fractions
 of their historical ranges. Theory predicts that when apex predators
 disappear, large herbivores should become less fearful, occupy new
 habitats, and modify those habitats by eating new food plants. Yet
 experimental support for this prediction has been difficult to obtain in
 large-mammal systems. Following the extirpation of leopards and African
 wild dogs from Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park, forest-dwelling
 antelopes (bushbuck, Tragelaphus sylvaticus) expanded into treeless
 floodplains, where they consumed novel diets and suppressed a common food
 plant (waterwort, Bergia mossambicensis). By experimentally simulating
 predation risk, we demonstrate that this behavior was reversible. Thus,
 whereas anthropogenic predator extinction disrupted a trophic cascade by
 enabling rapid differentiation of prey behavior, carnivore restoration may
 just as rapidly reestablish that cascade.
description: README_Metadata for
 Atkins et al. data filesMetadata description for
 all data files - please read before viewing each file.Raw_GPS_all_bushbuck_2016Raw, unannotated GPS data from 12 bushbuck collared in August-September 2016 in Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique.Raw_GPS_all_bushbuck_2015Raw, unannotated GPS data from 11 bushbuck that were collared in 2015 in Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique2015_Bushbuck_annotated_GPS_data_Figure1C_EAnnotated GPS data from 11 bushbuck collared in 2015 in Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique. Used to create Figures 1C and E in the paper.2016_Bushbuck_map_data_FigureS1Filtered and annotated GPS data from 12 bushbuck collared in 2016 in Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique. Used to create Figure S1 in the Supplementary Materials.Bushbuck_woodland_floodplain_densitiesDensities of floodplain and woodland bushbuck from aerial count data collected in Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, between 2002 and 2016.2016_Bushbuck_annotated_GPS_data_experimental_response_variablesFiltered and annotated GPS data from 12 bushbuck collared in 2016 Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique. This file contains the relevant data from the predator simulation experiments - nighttime locations, 48 hours before and 48 hours after both predator and procedural control cue deployment, for each individual.Bushbuck_Diet_GNP2016_trnL_filtered_dataMetadata_fecal samples_bushbuck_GNP2016Diet_quality_data_DE_DPThe diet quality data for 11 woodland and 7 floodplain bushbuck calculated from fecal samples collected in July - August 2016.Top_10_diet_plants_DP_DEThe nutritional quality data for some of the top 10 diet plant species for floodplain and woodland bushbuck.Tragelaphine_condition_data_PCABody condition metrics from 66 female Tragelaphine antelopes and the associated scores for each individual from a principal components analysis.Bergia_RRA_dataA subset of the filtered sequencing data resulting from the fecal DNA metabarcoding analysis to characterize diets of large mammalian herbivores in Gorongosa National Park.Bergia_cage_experiment_all_dataThe plant measurements of Bergia mossambicensis for the herbivore exclusion experiments. Data was collected by Justine L. Atkins in July 2017.