The response of geophytes to continuous human foraging on the Cape south coast, South Africa and its implications for early hunter-gatherer mobility patterns

Author:

Botha M. Susan1,Cowling Richard M.1ORCID,De Vynck Jan C.1,Esler Karen J.2ORCID,Potts Alastair J.3ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Botany Department, African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Gqeberha, Eastern Cape, South Africa

2. Stellenbosch University, Conservation Ecology & Entomology, Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa

3. Botany Department, Nelson Mandela University, Gqeberha, Eastern Cape, South Africa

Abstract

Current ecological understanding of plants with underground storage organs (USOs) suggests they have, in general, low rates of recruitment and thus as a resource it should be rapidly exhausted, which likely had implications for hunter-gatherer mobility patterns. We focus on the resilience (defined here as the ability of species to persist after being harvested) of USOs to human foraging. Human foragers harvested all visible USO material from 19 plots spread across six Cape south coast (South Africa) vegetation types for three consecutive years (2015–2017) during the period of peak USO apparency (September–October). We expected the plots to be depleted after the first year of harvesting since the entire storage organ of the USO is removed during foraging, i.e. immediate and substantial declines from the first to the second harvest. However, over 50% of the total weight harvested in 2015 was harvested in 2016 and 2017; only after two consecutive years of harvesting, was there evidence of significantly lower yield (p = 0.034) than the first (2015) harvest. Novel emergence of new species and new individuals in year two and three buffered the decline of harvested USOs. We use our findings to make predictions on hunter-gatherer mobility patterns in this region compared to the Hadza in East Africa and the Alyawara in North Australia.

Funder

South African National Research Foundation (NRF) Doctoral Scholarship

National Research Foundation Research Career Advancement Fellowship

NRF of South Africa

Publisher

PeerJ

Subject

General Agricultural and Biological Sciences,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Medicine,General Neuroscience

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