THE AFRICAN

ELEPHANT
A Species in Crisis: Evolutionary Profile
STATEMENT OF ISSUE
 Organism Name: The African elephant,
or Loxodonta Africana, has been classified
as a vulnerable species.
 Environmental Issue: African elephant
population decimated due to poaching
and conflict.
 Importance of Study: Climate change
and conflicts with humans are already
impacting how African elephants are
evolving. There are elephants in
Mozambique who are being born without
tusks
DEFINE TERMS
 Anthropogenic: the impact of humans to the environment and species. “Anthropo”
refers to human and “genic” refers to origin (Vallero & Fletcher, 2013).
Anthropogenic factors can be political, social, or economic.
 Biodiversity: the variety of plants and animals that cohabitate on earth. It has
several levels from genes, individual species, communities of creatures, and entire
ecosystems (Carrington, 2018).
 Evolution: how characteristics in a species change over generations in order to
reflect natural selection. It relies on genetic variation.
 Hybrid: two meanings: the interbreeding of two species; and the intraspecific
hybrids of two species from the same genus.
 Population: refers to communities, or groups, of species such as animals and
plants.
 Species: refers to “a group of individuals” that are can interbreed in nature. In
other words, species are “the biggest gene pool possible under natural conditions”
(“Defining,” n.d.).
 Population Data (”The Status,” 2018).
 1930: 10 million elephants

 In one decade: 111,000 died

 In 2014: 352,271 savanna elephants, 30

percent drop in 7 years East Africa: loss of
half of population
 Southern Africa: loss of 70 % of population

Growth Rate: (Steyn, 2016)

 Tanzania and Mozambique: 73,000 losses
in 5 years
 Cameroon: only 148 elephants left

 Botswana has the most alive: 130,000

 (Slide 4, image 1 “Botswana population

rates” (Steyn, 2016).

WHO CARES STATISTICS

BACKGROUND
INFORMATION
 Largest land animals

 mammal order Proboscidea and the

family Elephantidae (“Evolution,”
n.d.).
 two sub-species: the forest elephant
and the savanna elephant.
 The forest elephant is half the size
and suffering greater loss than the
savanna (bush) elephant.
 Reside in sub-Saharan Africa and
rainforests in West and Central Africa
 northern elephants are found in Mali’s
Sahel desert
 live up to 70 years and stand from 8.2
to 13 ft tall weighting 2.5 to 7 tons
(“African Elephant,” n.d.).
 (Slide 5, image 2: African Elephant
Description,) (“The Status,” 2018)
EVOLUTIONARY THEORIES
 Natural Selection: when animals evolve by passing on
advantageous physical characteristics to adapt better to their
environments.
 Sexual Selection: the process where one sex chooses mates
with particular features or from competition in the mating
selection process.
 Red Queen Hypothesis: species must change continuously
in order to keep up species that do change.
 Punctuated Equilibrium: is evolution that occurs in species
with a shorter evolution as change comes in small spurts.
 Macro Evolution:
 major changes to a species across a vast time
period.
 focuses more on the grand scale patterns at the
species level or higher.
 relies a lot on fossils and geology to link
changes.

Micro Evolution
 small changes in gene frequency of a species
due to mutation, genetic drift, migration, or
natural selection
 evolution can be seen over a short time period
from one generation to the next
 Slide 8, Image 3: History of Evolution
(“Evolution,” n.d.)

TYPES OF EVOLUTION
  Gene flow:
 the change of genes from one or two populations
 occurs when animals migrate and carry new alleles
with them to interbreed with the new population.

MECHANIS  Genetic Drift:

 gene frequencies in a population change over time
due to chance
MS OF  occurs the strongest in small population
 female elephants in Addo, South Africa have

EVOLUTIO reproduced without tusks so that nearly 98 percent

of their population is tuskless.

N
 Bottleneck Effect:
 a population is reduced greatly for at least one
generation
 The Kruger National Park elephant and Addo
National Park elephant populations have less
diversity than those in East African elephants
because of the small gene pool size.
 Founder Effect:
 A small group becomes isolated from their larger
population and start their own colony.
SPECIATI
ON
 Allopatric Speciation:
geographic speciation, which
occurs when populations of
species become isolated
because of geographical
changes or barriers like
mountains or rivers.
 Sympatric Speciation: is
when species are formed out
of a single ancestral species in
the same geographic area due
to factors such as different
food source or shelter.
 (Slide 9, Image 4: Tusklessness
is Trending) (Maron, 2018)
EVOLUTIONARY ISSUES
 Poaching and conflict with human communities
 Elephants move to human territories and die from retaliation

 Loss of habitat
 Fragmentation from human population expansion, land conversion
 Rely on dense forests

 Climate change:
 Loss of elephants can contribute 7 % more greenhouse gases (Dalton,
2019)
 Shaping of forests: loss of large trees that capture carbon
 7 % loss of aboveground biomass
 3 billion tons of carbon released
 Local, national, international
level
 Stop buying ivory
 Eliminate global market for
ivory
 Support African nations
 buy elephant-friendly wood
and coffee
 Support conservation efforts

SOLUTIONS
REFERENCES
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 Brown, J.S. (2016). Why Darwin would have loved evolutionary game theory. Proceedings Biological Sciences, 283(1838).
Doi:10.1098/rspb.2016.0847
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https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/12/what-is-biodiversity-and-why-does-it-matter-to-us
 Dalton, J. (2019). Elephant extinction in Africa would ‘speed up climate crisis by letting greenhouse gases escape.’ Independent.
Retrieved from
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/elephants-extinct-africa-climate-change-trees-study-carbon-co2-forest-a9005536.html
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 Maron, D.F. (2018). Under poaching pressure, elephants are evolving to lose their tusks. National Geographic. Retrieved from
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 Steyn, P. (2016). African elephant numbers plummet 30 percent, landmark survey finds. National Geographic. Retrieved from
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/08/wildlife-african-elephants-population-decrease-great-elephant-census/
 The status of African elephants. (2018). World Wildlife. Retrieved from
https://www.worldwildlife.org/magazine/issues/winter-2018/articles/the-status-of-african-elephants
 Vallero, D. A., & Letcher, T.M. (2013). Failure. Retrieved from
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/anthropogenic-factor
 Welsh, J. (2010). African elephant actually two separate species. Live Science. Retrieved from
https://www.livescience.com/9182-african-elephant-separate-species.html
 What is evolution? (2017). Your Genome. Retrieved from https://www.yourgenome.org/facts/what-is-evolution