Remote Sensing of Environmental Drivers Influencing the Movement Ecology of Sympatric Wild and Domestic Ungulates in Semi-Arid Savannas, a Review

Florent Rumiano (1, 2) , Elodie Wielgus (3, 4) , Eve Miguel (5, 6) , Simon Chamaillé-Jammes (7, 8, 9) , Hugo Valls-Fox (10, 2, 7) , Daniel Cornélis (11, 2) , Michel De Garine-Wichatitsky (3, 4) , Hervé Fritz (12, 13, 8) , Alexandre Caron (3, 4, 14) , Annelise Tran (1, 2, 3)

1 UMR TETIS - Territoires, Environnement, Télédétection et Information Spatiale
2 Cirad-ES - Département Environnements et Sociétés
3 UMR ASTRE - Animal, Santé, Territoires, Risques et Ecosystèmes
4 Cirad-BIOS - Département Systèmes Biologiques
5 MIVEGEC - Maladies infectieuses et vecteurs : écologie, génétique, évolution et contrôle
6 CREES - Centre de Recherche en Ecologie et Evolution de la Santé
7 CEFE - Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive
8 CNRS, LTSER France, Zone Atelier Hwange, Hwange Natl Pk,Bag 62, Dete, Zimbabwe
9 University of Pretoria [South Africa]
10 UMR SELMET - Systèmes d'élevage méditerranéens et tropicaux
11 UPR Forêts et Sociétés - Forêts et Sociétés
12 UCBL - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1
13 World Wildlife Fund, Washington
14 Faculté de Médecine [Université Eduardo Mondlane]

Interfaces between protected areas and their peripheries in southern Africa are subject to interactions between wildlife and livestock that vary in frequency and intensity. In these areas, the juxtaposition between production and conservation land uses in a context of increasing anthropisation can create issues associated with human-wildlife coexistence and raises concerns for biodiversity conservation, local development and livelihoods. This literature review aimed at addressing the need to consolidate and gather in one article current knowledge on potential uses of satellite remote sensing (SRS) products by movement ecologists to investigate the sympatry of wildlife/domestic ungulates in savanna interface environments. A keyword querying process of peer reviewed scientific paper, thesis and books has been implemented to identify references that (1) characterize the main environmental drivers impacting buffalo (Syncerus caffer caffer) and cattle (Bos taurus & Bos indicus) movements in southern Africa environments, (2) describe the SRS contribution to discriminate and characterize these drivers. In total, 327 references have been selected and analyzed. Surface water, precipitation, landcover and fire emerged as key drivers impacting the buffalo and cattle movements. These environmental drivers can be efficiently characterized by SRS, mainly through open-access SRS products and standard image processing methods. Applying SRS to better understand buffalo and cattle movements in semi-arid environments provides an operational framework that could be replicated in other type of interface where different wild and domestic species interact. There is, however, a need for animal movement ecologists to reinforce their knowledge of remote sensing and/or to increase pluridisciplinary collaborations.

Keywords: African savanna; Animal movements; Earth observation imagery; Remote sensing; Sympatric wild and domestic ungulates; Wildlife-livestock interface

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]

Florent Rumiano, Elodie Wielgus, Eve Miguel, Simon Chamaillé-Jammes, Hugo Valls-Fox, et al.. Remote Sensing of Environmental Drivers Influencing the Movement Ecology of Sympatric Wild and Domestic Ungulates in Semi-Arid Savannas, a Review. Remote Sensing, 2020, 12 (19), pp.33-53. ⟨10.3390/rs12193218⟩. ⟨hal-02980590⟩