Heading off on safari in Kenya means going in search of the majestic Big Five – legendary lions, leopards, elephants, rhinos, ...

At the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, a wildlife preserve in central Kenya, lions and cheetahs mingle with zebras and elephants across many miles of savannah - grasslands with "whistling thorn" acacia ...

Native acacia ants are killed by the smaller invasive big-headed ants, leaving whistling-thorn trees defenseless against elephants. Credit: Pat Milligan When people talk about the interconnectedness ...

Highly prolific – a queen can lay 1,500 eggs a day – the invader decimated the acacia ant. Losing its six-legged defenders, the tree became vulnerable to overbrowsing by elephants, which ...

Big-headed ants kill native acacia ants, which protect trees from elephants and other herbivores in Kenya — one of a few African nations with a sizable lion population — by swarming into the ...

These acacia ants guard whistling-thorn trees from elephant overgrazing. With acacia ants gone, unopposed elephants overgraze acacia trees. This diminishes tree cover. Such a reduction affects ...

As the researchers write, “Protection by acacia ants is particularly effective at deterring lethal herbivory by elephants (Loxodonta africana), thereby stabilizing savanna tree cover across entire ...

It all starts with the whistling-thorn acacia trees in the plains ... bite to discourage hungry elephants from devouring the trees. But the big-headed ant changed all that. Thought to have ...

the elephants began to feed on the trees, with scientists estimating that the giant herbivores grazed on and broke the trees at a five to seven times higher rate than when the acacia ants were in ...