Over the last 20 years, the Bale Mountains National Park (BMNP) has been used to graze increasingly high numbers of livestock that are suspected to have reduced rodent diversity and abundance. This reduction constitutes a threat to the persistence of the Ethiopian wolf population. Overgrazing also poses another ecological threat to the park: BMNP is the water source for five major rivers on which an estimated 12 million people depend, and it is feared that ground-trampling and vegetation removal by cattle has a detrimental effect on this hydrological system. Investigating the effects of livestock grazing on the functioning of this ecosystem has been identified as the leading research priority in the recently ratified BMNP management plan.

As part of her doctorate, Flavie Vial will establish critical links between vegetation condition, livestock grazing pressures and rodent assemblages through field investigations and through the construction of fenced-off areas – exclosures – in which grazing pressure can be finely and reliably manipulated. Flavie’s research is part of a new collaboration that will combine the conservation expertise available within the WildCRU, with the ecological modelling capabilities available within the Theoretical Ecology Group at the University of Glasgow. Flavie is jointly supervised by Dan Haydon (Glasgow), David Macdonals and Claudio Sillero (WildCRU) and working closely with the EWCP team in Bale.