Research is a critical tool in helping us understand the environment. It allows us to know what species exist and how they interact with each other. It allows us to monitor and assess threats to the system, implement mitigations, measure successes, and make better management decisions. Furthering science allows the next generation to build on what was done before.
University Studies
We conduct studies in partnership with universities, community leaderships and reserves. This is to answer pressing questions that can allow us all to make better informed decisions. We host and guide the students along with their supervisors and ensuring the operate in a safe and conducive environment.
Regional Species List
We maintain a regional species list and regularly add new records. Species lists allows us to understand the levels of biodiversity of a given area, allows us to apply for better protection status due to high endemism, special records, and unique biodiversity markers. By knowing what is here we can also easily see what is new and where their are issues due to changes in species, abundance, and distribution across the landscape.
Our regional species list (for immediate properties to our base) currently has 1808 species recorded and growing. This includes 5 critically endangered, 18 endangered, 28 vulnerable, and 28 near-threatened species. There are 107 endemics or near endemics, and 15 are CITES listed. A further 9 are protected species and 1 a critically rare species. We have only just begun to scratch the surface of what is here.
Species Descriptions and New Distributions
Through research we are able to record new distribution records and even discover and describe new species. We are currently investigating the potential of a new species of baboon spider (African tarantula) and a new praying mantis. Our full time entomologist Barbara recently described a new species of button spider (or widow spider/red back/ katipo), Latrodectus umbukwane, which is thus far unique to pristine Sand Forest and is the largest button spider in the world. It also produces a large bright blue egg sac which is unusual in the natural world.
Other recent descriptions in the area include a new species of rain frog (Breviceps carruthersi), a new tree, and there are multiple new plants species currently being described and investigated.
The praying mantis species, Oxyelaea sp., is currently being investigated and is the first record of this entire genus being found in southern Africa.
Video footage of Oxyelaea sp., one of the Lichen Mantids, the species yet to be determined although possibly Oxyelaea elegans,
More recently, the second confirmed record ever in South Africa of the ant species Discothyrea oculata was made and is a new distribution record for the entire province.
Surveys and Assessments
Surveys and Assessments across the various Kingdoms gathers data that feeds into the species lists, and informs the potential of new species and distributions. It further gives base line data that can be used to monitor populations and indicator species for any changes to the environment which could be a threat.
Surveys and Assessments:
Continuous Surveys
Greater Limpopo Lion Project
Ubuntu Wildlife Trust supported the Greater Limpopo Lion Project in Mozambique. There were approximately 100 free-roaming wild lions in the Mozambique component of the Greater Limpopo Lion Conservation Unit at the time of the project, with sufficient prey to support more than 300 hundred lions.
The objectives were to determine the space used by lion prides through GPS tracking and use these data to:
We provided the project with:
Small Mammal Project
Ubuntu Wildlife Trust recieved 137 small mammal traps for the use in small mammal research. These Tomahawk and Sherman traps are ethical live traps of varying size and able to trap mammals ranging from a caracal down to the smallest mouse. Any animal cuaght can then be released immediatly back into the environment or moved to a new area if necessary.
We did not have any planned small mammals projects, so we decided to provide these traps to other organisations who were conducting permitted conservation work.
