{"id":21885,"date":"2015-04-29T14:19:47","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T18:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fondriest.com\/news\/?p=21885"},"modified":"2021-11-10T16:41:09","modified_gmt":"2021-11-10T20:41:09","slug":"hippo-dung-revealed-as-important-food-source-in-african-rivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fondriest.com\/news\/hippo-dung-revealed-as-important-food-source-in-african-rivers.htm","title":{"rendered":"Hippo Dung Revealed As Important Food Source In African Rivers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Few studies have looked at the effects hippos have on the water quality of streams. And the reason is simple: Studying near hippos isn\u2019t safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an ornery animal to work with,\u201d said Doug McCauley, assistant professor of ecology, evolution and marine biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who just completed a study measuring the effects of hippo dung on the ecosystem of an African river. \u201cWhen you\u2019re sampling in a stream with salmon, there\u2019s no threat that a salmon would bite you in half.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for studies near gigantic hippos, the threat of danger is very real. So McCauley and other scientists from UC Berkeley and Princeton University were extra cautious during their time sampling in the Ewaso Ng\u2019iro River, doing things like adjusting their sampling times to avoid hippo herds or traveling with escorts from the Kenya Wildlife Service.<\/p>\n

Researchers\u2019 efforts charted the impacts of hippo dung by looking at its usefulness to fish and insects in the waterway. Their results are some of the few that tell of hippos\u2019 effects on ecosystems and underscore the need to protect hippo populations in decline.<\/p>\n

\"Hippopotamus

Hippopotamus introduce tons of organic matter annually into aquatic ecosystems that can act as a natural fertilizer for river and lake food webs. (Credit: UC Santa Barbara)<\/p><\/div>\n

Researchers began by feeding ground hippo dung to Trinidad guppies in lab tanks. This allowed them to see if the dung could serve as a food source for fish. As many aquarium enthusiasts know, guppies will eat most anything and they took no exception to the hippo waste.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe used that information to interpret what it looked like in the wild,\u201d said McCauley. \u201cAs it turns out, hippo dung is wonderful guppy food.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next step from there was collecting data in the field. Much of this relied on water samples from the Ewaso Ng\u2019iro River that scientists analyzed for hippo nutrients. Combined with this were tissue studies of barbel fish, the most common in the river, as well as those from dragonfly larvae. <\/p>\n

Chemical analysis showed that the tissues of those fish and insects were made up mostly of hippo dung. McCauley says that the findings make sense, but he was still intrigued to see the evidence encoded in the chemistry of fish and insect blood.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we see is this really important food that fish eat and take up biomass from,\u201d said McCauley. \u201cHippo dung may be an important food source for fueling productive fisheries. There is solid evidence that fish use resources derived from hippos.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Douglas

Douglas McCauley and James Mpemba test pH and dissolved oxygen concentrations of water samples collected from a river pool with a large pod of hippopotamus in Ruaha National Park, Tanzania. (Credit: UC Santa Barbara)<\/p><\/div>\n

Another neat find, which is part of a related research project, was the effects that water flow has on the usefulness of hippo resources. They become more or less available to creatures in the river ecosystem based almost solely on flow.<\/p>\n

The Ewaso Ng\u2019iro River runs perennially, McCauley says, but dries out as it moves toward Somalia. So the hippo matter can be extra food in some places, but too highly concentrated in others. Human actions, he says, are largely to blame for the river\u2019s diminished flows.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen rivers dry up, there can be isolated pools that have too much nutrient input, the result of not enough water and too many hippos,\u201d said McCauley.<\/p>\n

In addition to the finds on water flow and how creatures use hippo waste, McCauley says the research brings attention to a larger issue not getting a lot of scrutiny these days: declining hippo populations. Like lots of large-animal populations, hippos have been losing habitat range in recent decades. And conservationists have noted 10 to 20 percent declines in hippo numbers. <\/p>\n

Those declines are forecast to continue, which is a huge loss to nature\u2019s biodiversity portfolio, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeyond the obvious loss of a wonderful animal, we\u2019re losing an important biological force,\u201d said McCauley. \u201cThey fuel life in these rivers that would be lost without hippos. It raises the stakes on their declines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Top image:\u00a0The presence of hippopotamus and crocodiles in East African rivers increases the complexity of collecting water samples. (Credit: UC Santa Barbara)<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Researchers with UC Santa Barbara and Princeton University used chemical analysis techniques to find the importance of hippo dung to African river ecosystems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":21876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,49],"tags":[118,13,60,292,109,348,255],"class_list":["post-21885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-articles","category-rivers-streams","tag-aquatic-species","tag-biology","tag-featured","tag-hippo","tag-news-ticker","tag-rivers-streams","tag-university-of-california"],"remote_post_permalink":false,"remote_post_featured_image":false,"yoast_head":"\nHippo Dung Revealed As Important Food Source In African Rivers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Researchers with UC Santa Barbara and Princeton University used chemical analysis techniques to find the importance 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