💁🏻‍♀️ TIL: 🐘💩 In a 15-year field #experiment at #Mpala, #Kenya, researchers built fences to keep #elephants out and watched what happened.

Without elephant dung to eat, dung #beetle populations collapsed, resulting in 23% fewer species and 67% fewer individuals. The #study, led by Finote Gijsman, is the first large-scale #demonstration that protecting elephants also protects everything that depends on them.

👉 https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/06/removal-of-african-elephants-causes-coextinction-of-dung-beetles-study-finds/

#dungbeetles #ecology #conservation #savanna #ecosystem #insects #biodiversity #science #africa

OnlineFirst - "Decolonising spaces of knowledge production: Mpala research centre in Laikipia County, Kenya" by Mark Griffiths, Fridah Mueni, Kate Baker, and Surshti Patel:

#decolonisingconservation #fieldstations #Mpala #Kenya

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/25148486231156728