Tinley's Kaleidoscope
The South African ecologist Kenneth Tinley once compared the Greater Gorongosa Ecosystem to a kaleidoscope. Climate and soil type form the kaleidoscope's tubes. The system's living components form shifting, interconnected patterns, turning the bright colored chips within the tubes.
Observing long-term changes in vegetation and animal populations requires scientific discipline. But seasonal and daily movements of animals are easy to observe.
- Some animals don't wander far from their preferred habitat-- waterbuck stay close to water no matter where it moves. Hippos, too, stay close to water most of the time, but in the dry season they commute long distances at night to find good forage beyond the floodplains.
- Others are even more driven by the climate--during the wet season, impala and many other herbivores move out with the floods, move back when the dry season arrives, feeding on fresh green growth left by the receding waters.
- Many animals in Gorongosa National Park (civets, greater bushbabies, spotted eagle-owls) are nocturnal, moving with the rising and setting of the sun.
- Others take advantage of sudden opportunities--African hornbills, kites and carmine bee-eaters fly to brushfires to feed on fleeing creatures.
- Some species follow each other's movements--elephants and buffaloes graze rough, tall grass, making more tender, shorter grasses available to zebra, whose grazing in turn exposes forage for impala and wildebeest.
- Others lead—greater honeyguides fly along in front of honey badgers, leading the way to beehives, hoping to feed on scraps.
All those comings and goings feed back into the living system in constant, multi-dimensional cycles of great complexity.
Open this full-screen map to see the Gorongosa ecosystem. 
Read this 1968 account from ecologist Kenneth Tinley about his work in Gorongosa National Park. )){kind=link}