DOI: 10.5061/dryad.6v5v88g
title: Data from: Determinants of elephant foraging behavior in a coupled human-natural system: is brown the new green?

description: 1. Crop raiding by wildlife poses major threats to both wildlife
 conservation and human wellbeing in agro-ecosystems worldwide. These
 threats are particularly acute in many parts of Africa, where crop raiders
 include globally threatened megafauna such as elephants, and where
 smallholder agriculture is a primary source of human livelihood. One
 framework for understanding herbivore feeding behavior, the
 forage-maturation hypothesis, predicts that herbivores should align their
 movements with intermediate forage biomass (i.e., peak green-up); this
 phenomenon is known as “surfing the green wave.” Crop-raiding elephants,
 however, often consume not just foliage, but also fruits and tubers (e.g.,
 maize, potatoes), which generally mature after seasonal peaks in
 photosynthetic activity. Thus, although elephants have been reported to
 surf the green wave in natural habitats, they may utilize a different
 strategy in cultivated landscapes by selecting crops that are “browning
 down.” 2. We sought to understand the factors that underpin movement of
 elephants into agricultural landscapes. 3. In Mozambique’s Gorongosa
 National Park, we used movement data from GPS-collared elephants, together
 with precipitation records, remotely sensed estimates of landscape
 greenness (NDVI), DNA-based diet analysis, measurements of plant
 nutritional quality, and survey-based metrics of crop availability to
 understand spatiotemporal variation in elephant crop-raiding behavior. 4.
 Elephants tracked peak NDVI while foraging inside the Park. During the dry
 season, however, when NDVI within the Park declined and availability of
 mature crops was high, crop-raiding increased dramatically, and elephants
 consistently selected crop plants that were browning down while foraging
 in cultivated landscapes. Crops contained significantly higher digestible
 energy than wild food plants, but comparable (and sometimes lower) levels
 of digestible protein, suggesting that this foraging strategy maximized
 energy rather than protein intake. 5. Our study is the first to combine
 GPS tracking data with high-resolution diet analysis and community-based
 reporting of crop availability to reveal fine-scale plasticity in foraging
 behavior of elephants at the human-wildlife interface. Our results extend
 the forage-maturation hypothesis by showing that elephants surf waves of
 plant brown-down in cultivated landscapes. These findings can aid efforts
 to reduce human-elephant conflict by enabling wildlife managers to
 prioritize mitigation actions in time and space with limited resources.
description: Elephant Diet
 DataData on diet composition
 of 6 elephants from our study (based on DNA metabarcoding) and associated
 data on digestible energy and protein content of each plant species
 consumed by those elephants.Elephant_Diet_Data.xlsxElephant GPS Collar DataGPS fixes obtained every 30 minutes for each of 12 elephants monitored during our study.Elephant_GPS_Collar_Data.xlsxEnumerator DataData on crop raiding events (e.g., date, location, crops damaged, etc.) recorded by community members employed as enumerators during our study.Enumerator_Data.xlsxPrecipitation DataDaily precipitation measurements recorded by a rain gauge located in a nearby community during our study.Precip_Data.xlsxPungue RiverThis zip file contains a single shapefile that depicts the portion of the Pungue River (the southern boundary of Gorongosa National Park) relevant to our study.Pungue_River.zipREADMEDetailed metadata describing the contents of each of the data files associated with this paper.