In elephants, the resilience of communities has its limits

A new study suggests that while elephant communities exhibit remarkable resilience in the face of individual deaths or new arrivals, this resilience may falter when steady losses accumulate over time. The research, led by Anastasia Madsen of the University of California, San Diego, analyzed 12 years of observations of wild Asian elephants in Sri Lanka and found that when the rate of losses surpasses that of newcomers, the community not only shrinks but also fractures.

The study took place in Udawalawe National Park, established in the 1970s around a reservoir in southern Sri Lanka, which was once a tropical deciduous forest. The findings highlight the limits of community resilience in the face of persistent, ongoing changes.

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