Across the globe, biological invasions have disrupted mutualisms, producing reverberating consequences for ecosystems. Although invasive species frequently trigger mutualism disruptions, few studies have quantified the demographic mechanisms by which mutualism breakdown may generate population effects. In a Kenyan savanna, the invasive big‐headed ant ( Pheidole megacephala ) has disrupted a foundational mutualism between the m...

Diverse communities of large mammalian herbivores (LMH), once widespread, are now rare. LMH exert strong direct and indirect effects on community structure and ecosystem functions, and measuring these effects is important for testing ecological theory and for understanding past, current, and future environmental change. This in turn requires long‐term experimental manipulations, owing to the slow and often nonlinear responses...

Merely designating new and/or expanding existing protected areas (PAs) does not guarantee the protection of critical ecosystems and species. The management of PAs must be effective to sustain meaningful conservational outcomes. We inferred the management effectiveness of PAs in Kenya based on the representation of ranges and distribution of multiple diversity dimensions of terrestrial mammals and their association with governa...

Biological invasions can lead to the reassembly of communities and understanding and predicting the impacts of exotic species on community structure and functioning are a key challenge in ecology. We investigated the impact of a predatory species of invasive ant, Pheidole megacephala , on the structure and function of a foundational mutualism between Acacia drepanolobium and its associated acacia‐ant community in an East Afric...