Animal Conservation. Print ISSN 1367-9430 Postwar wildlife recovery in an African savanna: evaluating patterns and drivers of species occupancy and richness K. M. Gaynor1,2 , J. H. Daskin3, L. N. Rich1,4 & J. S. Brashares1 1 Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA,USA 2 National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA,USA 3 Division of Conservation and Classification, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Falls Church, Virginia,USA 4 California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Nongame Wildlife Program, Sacramento, California,USA Keywords Abstract camera traps; monitoring; Mozambique; multi-species modeling; Africa; wildlife As local and global disturbances reshape African savannas, an understanding of recovery; species richness; restoration. how animal communities recover and respond to landscape features can inform conservation and restoration. Here, we explored the spatial ecology of a wildlife Correspondence community in Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, where conservation efforts Kaitlyn M. Gaynor, National Center for have fostered the recovery of large mammal populations after their near-extirpation Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, University during Mozambique’s civil war. We deployed a grid of 60 camera traps and used of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, a hierarchical, multi-species occupancy modeling approach to examine patterns of CA, USA. occupancy and its environmental and anthropogenic correlates for different func- Email:
[email protected] tional groups and species. Our survey provides strong evidence that wildlife in Gorongosa is recovering. Throughout the study area, modeled species richness was Editor: Rahel Sollmann comparable to richness in less-disturbed savanna systems in Tanzania and Bots- Associate Editor: Jonathan Davies wana, and exceeded estimates of richness from a mixed-use landscape outside the park and from postwar (1997–2002) aerial surveys.