I’ve been involved in a project lead by my long-term collaborator Dr Richard Mazebedi from the Botswana International University of Science, where we mapped compared the cave ecology and conservation scientific output in Southern Africa (Botswana, Namibia and South Africa) with other karst regions in the world. We also identify research gaps in particular concerning the lack of ecological knowledge in many of the region’s current and potential showcaves.
Mazebedi, R., Majoka, K. and Hesselberg, T. (2025). Comparative Overview of Cave Biodiversity Research Activities in Southern Africa: Insights from Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. Diversity 17, 342.
https://doi.org/10.3390/d17050342
Caves and subterranean habitats in general support a unique set of organisms that are adapted to the dark and nutrient-limited environment. The high selection pressure and limited gene flow between semi-isolated caves have generally resulted in a high level of endemicity among the depauperate cave fauna. The cave fauna is vulnerable to a range of anthropogenic factors, including mining and excessive usage as show caves. The awareness of the need for conservation of these unique habitats has been growing in recent years, but not uniformly. In this paper, we use Web of Science to look at how the subterranean research output in the ecology and conservation area in southern Africa compares to the rest of the world. We find that while Africa as a whole has a disproportionately low publication rate, southern Africa is relatively well represented, though driven exclusively by South Africa. However, unlike the development in the rest of the world, the number of publications has not risen much in recent years and is mainly focused on vertebrates. In this paper, we discuss the reasons for this discrepancy and use well-known show caves in the region as case studies to identify research priorities and promote more awareness of the conservation needs of caves in southern Africa.
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