Human Impact
Humans can cause a lot of harm to the savanna in many ways and through the ecosystem. One example of this is when people use the grasslands to graze their livestock. They also turn a lot of the grass lands into farmlands for growing crops. This means that there is less grass for the primary consumers in the ecosystem to feed on, which causes a chain reaction amongst the other levels of consumers. Many people also hunt the animals in the savanna for their valuable body parts. This can cause many species to go extinct which can in turn cause the ecosystem to become unbalanced. For example people hunt elephants for their tusks and around 70,000 African elephants are killed a year for their tusks. People also hunt lions for their fur and bison for their meat. The population of these animals are decreasing and the African elephant is now endangered. People also try and put out the natural fires that occur during the dry season. These fires help natural selection amongst plants occur. The fires also burn down some of the trees allowing light to reach the grasses and shrubs underneath. People also can start unnatural fires in the savanna. These unnatural fires can easily get out of hand and kill many plants and animals. The man made fires ravage across that savanna, burning grass and killing tree seedlings which stops new trees from growing. They also may remove trees for resources or to make it harder for the predators to hunt their livestock. This makes it so the grass doesn't have any competition for the water and will grow much higher. Exotic species are also introduced into the savanna by humans that are not supposed to be there. This can greatly upset the balance in the ecosystem. For example, rabbits were introduced into the Australian savanna, quickly multiplying and spreading across the entire country. The over population of these rabbits caused many of the grassland plants to go extinct. Overall humans negatively impact the savanna in many different ways. The savanna would be better off if humans let nature take its course instead of interfering with the biome.