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Animal Life and Desertification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

John L. Cloudsley-Thompson
John L. Cloudsley-Thompson
Affiliation:
Professor of Zoology, Birkbeck College (University of London), Malet Street, London W.C.1, England, formerly Professor of Zoology, University of Khartoum, and Keeper, Sudan Museum of Natural History, Khartoum, Sudan.
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Extract

Ecological interrelationships are far less complex in the desert biome than they are in grassland or forest but, even so, they are little understood. Some of the better known are described, but none of them is relevant to desertification. Harmful insects, such as locusts, grasshoppers, and termites, are unlikely to be responsible for extension of desert, except when they intensify environmental changes that have already been initiated by Man. Similarly, mammalian herbivores, even if protected and allowed to attain far greater population sizes than at present, are most unlikely to cause harm, as they are highly nomadic and always on the move.

These relationships hold true despite the fact that the natural predators of desert mammalian herbivores have largely been eliminated by human activities.

Type
Main Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1977 , pp. 199 - 204
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 1977

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