Male biased sex ratio of poached elephants is negatively related to poaching intensity over time

Conservation Genetics

Volumn 15, Issue 5, 2014, Pages 1259-1263

  Mondol, Samrat ^a   Mailand, Celia R ^a   Wasser, Samuel K ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON   (United States)

Author keywords

African elephants; Elephant recovery; Female matriarch; Ivory; Sex ratio

Indexed keywords

ELEPHANT; HABITAT LOSS; IVORY; MALE BEHAVIOR; POACHING; POPULATION GROWTH; SEX RATIO;

ZAMBIA;

ELEPHANTIDAE; LOXODONTA;

EID: 84907073532     PISSN: 15660621     EISSN: 15729737     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s10592-014-0603-2     Document Type: Article

References (24)

1. Ahlering MA, Hailer F, Roberts MT, Foley C (2011) A simple and accurate method to sex savannah, forest and Asian elephants using noninvasive sampling techniques. Mol Ecol Res 11:831–834
2. Archie EA, Chiyo PI (2012) Elephant behaviour and conservation: social relationships, the effects of poaching, and genetic tools for management. Mol Ecol 21:765–778
3. Archie EA, Moss CJ, Alberts SC (2006) The ties that bind: genetic relatedness predicts the fission and fusion of social groups in wild African elephants. Proc R Soc Lond B 273:513–522
4. Blanc JJ (2007) African elephant status report 2007: an update from the African elephant database. IUCN
5. Burn RW, Underwood FM, Blanc J (2011) Global trends and factors associated with the illegal killing of elephants: a hierarchical bayesian analysis of carcass encounter data. PLoS One 6(9):e24165
6. Douglas-Hamilton I (1987) African elephants: population trends and their causes. Oryx 21:11–24
7. Gobush KS, Wasser SK (2009) Behavioural correlates of low relatedness in African elephant core groups of a poached population. Anim Behav 78:1079–1086
8. Gobush KS, Mutayoba BM, Wasser SK (2008) Long-term impacts of poaching on relatedness, stress physiology, and reproductive output of adult female African elephants. Conserv Biol 22:1590–1599
9. Idhe S (1991) A study of the elephant population in Mikumi National Park (Tanzania) under special consideration of the problem of poaching. Institute of Behavioral Physiology, University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld
10. Ishengoma DRS, Shedlock AM, Foley CAH, Foley LJ, Wasser SK, Balthazary ST, Mutayoba BM (2008) Effects of poaching on bull mating success in a free ranging African elephant (Loxodonta africana) population in Tarangire national park, Tanzania. Conserv Genet 9:247–255
11. Mailand C, Wasser SK (2007) Isolation of DNA from small amounts of elephant ivory. Nature Protoc 2:2228–2232
12. Maisels F, Strindberg S, Blake S, Wittemyer G, Hart J et al (2013) Devastating decline of forest elephants in central Africa. PLoS ONE 8(3):e59469
13. Martin E, Martin C, Vigne L (2011) The importance of ivory in Philippine culture. Pachyderm 50:56–67
14. Milner-Gulland EJ, Beddington JR (1993) The exploitation of elephants for the ivory trade: an historical perspective. Proc R Soc Lond B 252:29–37
15. Poole JH (1989) Final report to the African Wildlife Foundation: the effects of poaching on age structures and social and reproductive patterns of selected east African elephant populations. In: The Ivory trade and the future of the African elephant. Second meeting, CITES African elephant working group, Gabarone, Botswana
16. Ramakrishnan U, Santosh JA, Ramakrishnan U, Sukumar R (1998) The population and conservation status of Asian elephants in the Periyar Tiger Reserve, southern India. Curr Sci 74:110–113
17. Sukumar R, Ramakrishnan U, Santosh JA (1998) Impact of poaching on an Asian elephant population in Periyar, southern India: a model of demography and tusk harvest. Anim Conserv 1:281–291
18. Underwood FM, Burn RW, Milliken T (2013) Dissecting the illegal ivory trade: an analysis of ivory seizure data. PLoS ONE 8(10):e76539
19. UNEP, CITES, IUCN, TRAFFIC (2013) Elephants in the dust—the African elephant crisis. A rapid response assessment. United Nations Environment Programme, GRID-Arendal. http://www.unep.org/pdf/RRAivory_draft7.pdf
20. Wasser SK, Shedlock AM, Comstock K, Ostrander EA, Mutayoba B, Stephens M (2004) Assigning African elephant DNA to geographic region of origin: applications to the ivory trade. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 101:14847–14852
21. Wasser SK, Mailand C, Booth R, Mutayoba B, Kisamo E, Clark B, Stephens M (2007) Using DNA to track the origin of the largest ivory seizure since the 1989 trade ban. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 104:4228–4233
22. Wasser SK, Joseph Clark W, Drori O, Stephen Kisamo E, Mailand C, Mutayoba B, Stephens M (2008) Combating the illegal trade in African elephant ivory with DNA forensics. Conserv Biol 22:1065–1071
23. Wasser SK, Clark B, Laurie C (2009) The ivory trail. Sci Am 301:68–76
24. Wittemyer G, Daballen D, Douglas-Hamilton I (2011) Poaching policy: rising ivory prices threaten elephants. Nature 476:282–283