Savannah study shows thousands of new species

A study of an African Game Reserve, led by a group of Oxford scientists, has uncovered thousands of species of insects and a number of plants and even small mammals which were previously unknown to science. The ten-year international study of the Mkomazi Game Reserve in northern Tanzania was led by Dr Malcolm Coe, former Lecturer in Animal Ecology, Department of Zoology and currently Emeritus Fellow of St Peter's College, on behalf of the Royal Geographical Society. Dr Coe said: `Much of the identification will still take many years, but current results indicate the Mkomazi Reserve is one of the richest savannah areas in Africa. The importance of such species inventory studies cannot be over-emphasised as we see increasing human populations destroying natural habitats and their plants and animals, throughout the developing world.' The study team, which included research groups from the United Kingdom, USA, South Africa, and Tanzania found between 1,300 and 1,500 plant species in what is a relatively small area (3,700 square kilometres), compared with an estimated 10,000 species for the whole of Tanzania (930,700 square kilometres). The final count of birds is expected to reach 430 species, already including six Sahel species not previously recorded in Tanzania. The small mammals study also added two or three new species. A key aim of the study was to document the reserve's biodiversity and much attention was focused on entomological work, carried out by twelve investigators including Dr George McGavin, Assistant Curator of Entomology, University Museum and Dr Graham Stone, Demonstrator in Invertebrate Biology, at the Department of Zoology. Dr McGavin said: `It is quite likely that up to 30 per cent of the insect species collected are new to science and our work on two groups of trees, the Acacia and Commiphora species, has demonstrated that there could be up to 90,000 insect species in the reserve.' The study was commissioned in 1988 by the Tanzanian Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism's Department of Wildlife, and sponsored by the Darwin Initiative, the Royal Society, the Overseas Development Administration, the Commonwealth Secretariat, and a number of major international companies and charities.