Water economics of African savanna herbivores: How much does plant moisture matter?

Water is an essential and often limiting resource that pervades all aspects of animal ecology. Yet, water economics are grossly understudied relative to foraging and predation, leaving ecologists ill-equipped to predict how the intensifying disruption of hydrological regimes worldwide will impact communities. For savanna herbivores, reliance on surface water can increase exposure to predators and competitors, and thus strategies that reduce the need to drink are advantageous. Yet, the extent to which increasing dietary water intake while decreasing water loss enables animals to forego drinking remains unknown.
We studied water budgets of sympatric African savanna antelopes that differ in size, bushbuck (Tragelaphus sylvaticus, ~35 kg) and kudu (T. strepsiceros, ~140 kg). We hypothesized that both species compensate for seasonally declining water availability by increasing consumption of moisture-rich plants and reducing fecal water loss, and that these adjustments are sufficient for sma..., , , # Water economics of African savanna herbivores: How much does plant moisture matter?

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.w0vt4b936](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.w0vt4b936)

## Description of the data and file structure

This is the README file for datasets contained in the publication: Jeremy A. Van Driessche, Simon Chamaillé-Jammes, Ciara M. Nutter, Arjun B. Potter, Robert M. Pringle, and Ryan A. Long, Water economics of African savanna herbivores: how much does plant moisture matter? Journal of Animal Ecology, 2025.

### Files and variables

#### **1.     2021\_moTU\_taxon\_per\_sample.csv**

Species = ‘Bushbuck’ or ‘Kudu’

Date = day the fecal sample was collected

Season_dry = ‘mid’ or ‘late’; distinguishes whether the fecal sample was collected during the middle (July/August 2021) or late (September/October 2021) dry season

Sample_ID = fecal sample identifier

Columns E-BN represent molecular operational taxonomic units (mOTUs) assigned to plant taxa in Gorongosa National Park, Moza...