He elephant It is the largest terrestrial animal and the displacements imply an important physical effort; Therefore, they are able to plan their trips based on energy costs, which leads them to prefer little injured land through environments rich in resources.
African elephants are studying an investigation published by Journal of Animal Ecology which concludes that They have an extraordinary ability to meet their great food needs as efficient as possible.
A team headed by the University of Oxford (United Kingdom) studied data from 157 Elephantsfollower by GPS in the north of Kenya Between 1998 and 2020 to study their displacements and establish patterns.
Understand how elephants move by the landscape is essential to design effective conservation strategiesespecially since habitat fragmentation and human activities continue to threaten populations.
Elephants prefer landscapes with lower displacement costs, thus 94 % avoid the pronounced slopes and the rugged land. This data suggests that they are aware of their surroundings and make cost-benefit decisions to choose the most efficient paths from the energy point of view.
The specimens that move at high speed avoid even more difficult and expensive land from the energy point of view.
74 % avoided expensive areas when they moved slowly, a percentage that increased to 87 % when they moved to intermediate speeds and 93 % when they did it quickly.
For authors, this suggests that animals carefully balance effort and energy efficiency, especially during long displacements.
In addition, they actively select the areas with the greatest productivity of vegetation, and 93% indicate a preference for environments rich in resources.
Water sources influence the place chosen by elephants, but each of them can respond differently.
Some remain close to them, while others go further, which shows that their displacement options are more complex than going to the nearest river or pond, the university indicates.
To analyze tracking data, the equipment used an innovative modeling method called Eerscape, which calculates the energy costs of the movement based on body mass and the slope of the terrain.
The way the elephants chose their paths was evaluated with a statistical method that compares the places they visited with other nearby areas that could have chosen but did not do so, which allowed to determine which environmental factors influenced the displacement decisions and habitat selection.
These findings, according to the authors, have direct applications for the conservation of wildlife and could help guide the design of protected areas and migratory corridors, in addition to helping to predict how the movements of elephants to climate change can respond.
Professor Fritz Vollrath, from the University of Oxford and signer of the text, considers that more detailed investigation is necessary to fully understand how an elephant uses his habitat, but this study “identifies a central factor in the decision making of travelers elephants: save energy whenever possible”.