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   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
    Madagascar hippos were forest dwellers    
    Research demonstrates the important role woodlands have played on the   
   island    
      
     Date:   
         July 7, 2023   
     Source:   
         University of Cincinnati   
     Summary:   
         Extinct dwarf hippos that once roamed Madagascar lived in forests   
         rather than open grasslands preferred by common hippos on mainland   
         Africa. The findings suggest grasslands that now cover much of the   
         enormous island off the eastern coast of southern Africa were a   
         relatively recent change facilitated by people rather than a natural   
         habitat sustained in part by these famously large vegetarians.   
      
      
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   Extinct dwarf hippos that once roamed Madagascar lived in forests rather   
   than open grasslands preferred by common hippos on mainland Africa,   
   researchers at the University of Cincinnati discovered.   
      
   The findings suggest grasslands that now cover much of the enormous   
   island off the eastern coast of southern Africa were a relatively recent   
   change facilitated by people rather than a natural habitat sustained in   
   part by these famously large vegetarians.   
      
   The study was published in the journal Plants, People, Planet.   
      
   When Madagascar broke away from Africa's mainland 150 million years   
   ago, its plants and animals evolved in geographic isolation in the   
   Indian Ocean.   
      
   Madagascar had no elephants, giraffes, rhinos or other big mammals like   
   those found on the mainland today.   
      
   But it did have hippos.   
      
   About the size of a cow, the dwarf or Malagasy hippo was far smaller   
   than its four-ton cousin, the common hippopotamus. Even so, the Malagasy   
   hippopotamus was among the largest land animals on the island along with   
   Nile crocodiles and the flightless and enormous elephant bird.   
      
   These hippos likely resembled today's secretive and endangered pygmy   
   hippos found in the forests and swamps of West Africa's Liberia   
   and Guinea, said Brooke Crowley, a UC professor of geosciences and   
   anthropology and lead author of the study.   
      
   "Ecologically, we think the Malagasy dwarf hippos were pretty close to   
   the pygmy hippos that live in forests in West Africa," Crowley said.   
      
   Crowley and her research colleagues conducted an isotopic analysis of   
   stable carbon and nitrogen found in the bones of extinct Malagasy dwarf   
   hippos that roamed the island more than 1,000 years ago. These isotopes,   
   found in the bones of animals, leave behind a fingerprint of the foods   
   they ate. And this provides clues about their preferred habitats.   
      
   Researchers took samples from the bones of dwarf hippos at museums   
   along with those the team collected on the island. They found that   
   dwarf hippos did not regularly graze on grass in dry, open habitats,   
   even in regions dominated by grassland today. Instead, they preferred   
   plants found in the wetter, more forested landscapes. This suggests   
   forest was more abundant before people began changing the landscape to   
   grow cultivated plants, graze domesticated cows and goats and obtain   
   firewood and building materials.   
      
   Common hippos on the mainland love grass. Their name derives from   
   the Greek words for "river horse." Each night they leave the safety of   
   rivers and waterholes to find fresh pasture, cropping grass like a horse,   
   before returning in the morning.   
      
   But the researchers' analysis found that grass represented only a small   
   part of the diet of Malagasy dwarf hippos. Instead, they behaved more   
   like browsers, feeding on sedges and leaves. As a result, hippos likely   
   had little influence on maintaining or expanding grasslands on the island.   
      
   "For years we've seen evidence that these animals were not grazers,"   
   said Laurie Godfrey, a study co-author and professor emerita at the   
   University of Massachusetts Amherst.   
      
   Godfrey said there is evidence to suggest that people caused the   
   extinction of hippos on the island when they created permanent communities   
   and moved from hunting and gathering to raising domestic animals and   
   crops. She calls her idea the "Subsistence Shift Hypothesis," which   
   she said is an elaboration on a similar idea first proposed by noted   
   archaeologist Robert Dewar.   
      
   "There is pretty compelling convergent evidence showing that many of the   
   extinct animals disappeared in a short window of time coinciding with   
   the transition of people from hunting and gathering to pastoralism,"   
   UC's Crowley said.   
      
   Crowley thinks restoring native forests is key to helping conserve   
   wildlife on the island. Based on their study, expansive grasslands were   
   not a critical habitat, at least for the island's hippos.   
      
   "Some colleagues argue that grasslands are ancient and that we need to   
   protect and manage them like we do forest," Crowley said. "I would argue   
   that forests are far more important. We are not contending that grasses   
   did not exist in the past, but pointing out that there is no evidence   
   for large grasslands devoid of trees prior to about 1,000 years ago."   
   It's a point the researchers make in the study as well.   
      
   "It is clear that Madagascar faces a biodiversity crisis much greater   
   than that which it has already endured. Preventing this crisis will   
   demand new conservation actions," the study concluded.   
      
   The study was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation,   
   the African Regional Research Program Fulbright and the National   
   Geographic Society.   
      
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   provided by University_of_Cincinnati. Original written by Michael   
   Miller. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.   
      
      
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   Journal Reference:   
      1. Brooke Erin Crowley, Laurie Rohde Godfrey, Karen Elizabeth   
      Samonds. What   
         can hippopotamus isotopes tell us about past distributions of C4   
         grassy biomes on Madagascar? PLANTS, PEOPLE, PLANET, 2023 DOI:   
         10.1002/ ppp3.10402   
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   Link to news story:   
   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230707153831.htm   
      
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