PLOS ONE RESEARCH ARTICLE Long-term historical and projected herbivore population dynamics in Ngorongoro crater, Tanzania 1³ 2³ 2 3 Patricia D. Moehlman , Joseph O. OgutuID *, Hans-Peter Piepho , Victor A. Runyoro , Michael B. Coughenour4, Randall B. Boone5 1 IUCN/SSC Equid Specialist Group, Arusha, Arusha, Tanzania, 2 Institute for Crop Science-340, University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany, 3 Environmental Reliance Consultants Limited, Arusha, Tanzania, 4 Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, United States of America, 5 Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, a1111111111 Colorado, United States of America a1111111111 a1111111111 ³ PDM and JOO are joint first authors on this work. a1111111111 *
[email protected] a1111111111 Abstract The Ngorongoro Crater is an intact caldera with an area of approximately 310 km2 located OPEN ACCESS within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) in northern Tanzania. It is known for the Citation: Moehlman PD, Ogutu JO, Piepho H-P, abundance and diversity of its wildlife and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and an Interna- Runyoro VA, Coughenour MB, Boone RB (2020) tional Biosphere Reserve. Long term records (1963±2012) on herbivore populations, vege- Long-term historical and projected herbivore population dynamics in Ngorongoro crater, tation and rainfall made it possible to analyze historic and project future herbivore population Tanzania. PLoS ONE 15(3): e0212530. https://doi. dynamics. NCA was established as a multiple use area in 1959. In 1974 there was a pertur- org/10.1371/journal.pone.0212530 bation in that resident Maasai and their livestock were removed from the Ngorongoro Crater.