Table Of ContentA Place like No Other
A Place like No Other
discovering the secrets of
serengeti
ANTHONY R. E. SINCLAIR
WITH RENÉ BEYERS
prince ton university press
prince ton & oxford
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Sinclair, A. R. E. (Anthony Ronald Entrican), author. | Beyers, René,
1961– author.
Title: A place like no other : discovering the secrets of Serengeti / Anthony R. E.
Sinclair with René Beyers.
Description: Prince ton : Prince ton University Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020056501 (print) | LCCN 2020056502 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780691222332 (hardback) | ISBN 9780691222349 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Animal ecology— Tanzania— Serengeti National Park Region. |
Ecosystem management— Tanzania— Serengeti National Park Region. |
Biodiversity conservation— Tanzania— Serengeti National Park Region. |
Serengeti National Park (Tanzania)
Classification: LCC QL337.T3 S56 2021 (print) | LCC QL337.T3 (ebook) |
DDC 591.709678/27—d c23
LC rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2020056501
LC ebook rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2020056502
British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available
Editorial: Alison Kalett and Whitney Rauenhorst
Production Editorial: Natalie Baan
Jacket Design: Layla Mac Rory
Production: Danielle Amatucci
Publicity: Kate Farquhar- Thomson and Sara Henning- Stout
Copyeditor: Steven Krauss
Jacket image: Zebras grazing in the Serengeti, Tanzania. Photo: James Smith /
Alamy Stock Photo
This book has been composed in Arno
Printed on acid- free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In recognition of
Justin Hando
1951–2020
and
Markus Borner
1945–2020
Who, in dif er ent ways, saved the Serengeti in
its time of greatest need
contents
Preface ix
Acknowl edgments xiii
1 Why Serengeti? 1
2 The Discovery of Rinderpest 25
3 Finding Regulation 33
4 The Discovery of Food Regulation 44
5 How Predators Regulate Prey 59
6 How Migration Structures Serengeti 74
7 Biodiversity and the Regulation of Ecosystems 89
8 Disturbance and the Per sis tence of Ecosystems 106
9 Continuous Change in Ecosystems 115
10 Appearance of Multiple States and Rapid Shifts
in Ecosystems 133
11 The Fundamental Princi ple of Regulation, and
Future Directions 143
vii
viii contents
12 Threats to the Serengeti 155
13 Lessons from the Serengeti 172
14 Rewilding 193
Appendix: Mammals and Trees Mentioned in the Text 219
Notes 225
Index 271
preface
This is the narrative of how scientists discovered the rules that produced
the unique features of the great Serengeti ecosystem and allowed it to
persist. The story begins when I, Anthony Sinclair, first arrived in the
Serengeti as a young student in 1965, and, seeing the magnificence of the
place, de cided to find out why it was so outstanding and what held it
together and made it work. My first job, as an assistant to an Oxford
University professor, was to answer the question of how so many mi-
grant birds from the whole of Asia and Eu rope had managed to fit into
the comparatively tiny area of East Africa for the winter—t hey seemed
to be breaking all the rules of ecolo gy. While engaged with this prob lem,
I became aware that the large- mammal populations of Serengeti were
increasing rapidly, especially the dominant herbivore species of bufalo,
wildebeest, and elephant. I was asked to turn my attention to this prob-
lem. The increase raised a number of questions fundamental to ecol ogy
and essential for conservation.
I started with this s imple question: Why w ere these species increas-
ing? But this led to more profound questions and discoveries. Perhaps
once a de cade since then, there has been an impor tant discovery con-
cerning some new aspect that explains how the Serengeti works. Th ese
aspects are really all related to one fundamental princi ple— the princi-
ple of regulation— which governs not only Serengeti but also every
other ecosystem of the world. It turned out there were seven of these
aspects, which we called subprinciples, uncovered over a period of some
50 years (see chapters 3–10). The story of their elucidation is necessarily
linear, and for the most part that is how the princip les w ere uncovered—
one discovery led to more questions, which led to the next discovery.
The princi ple of regulation (chapter 3) was deduced in the 1960s and
ix
