habitat_narrative
Terrestrial
They are found in most of the types of vegetation encountered in southern Africa (including the coastal areas of the Namib Desert), from sea level to 2,000 m asl (Skinner & Chimimba 2005). They are generally absent from forest, and are only found here marginally. In Nylsvley Nature Reserve, Limpopo Province, they showed a preference for Burkea over Acacia savannah due to higher concentrations of food in the former (de Villiers et al. 1994; de Villiers & van Aarde 1994). In the Bokkeveld Plateau, in the Northern Cape, they showed seasonal changes in preference for habitats based on the habitatâs substrate, seasonal food availability and refuge capacity. They can also exist in human-modified areas, such as croplands and suburban gardens.Porcupines feed predominantly on roots, geophytes and tubers, which are dug up from under the ground using their strong incisors. Cape porcupines not only consume plants selectively (Bragg 2003; de Villiers & van Aarde 1994) and sometimes en masse (Bragg 2003), but they are also able to consume (without any apparent side-effects) geophyte species that are known to be toxic for livestock. They also feed on fallen fruits, and gnaw bones. Due to the combination of their diet and digging abilities, porcupines can become agricultural pests in farming areas (Monadjem et al. 2015). They do not appear to scavenge (Shaw et al. 2015). They are nocturnal, territorial and solitary foragers, although they can occasionally be found foraging in groups of two to three animals. They are monogamous and live in groups comprising either an adult pair, an adult pair and their offspring from consecutive litters, or an adult male and young of the year (Skinner & Chimimba 2005). They are long-lived and have a slow reproductive rate.
Porcupines of the genus Hystrix are the largest African rodents with a mass of up to 20 kg (Monadjem et al. 2015). They typically rest during the day in rock crevices, small caves, or burrows, the latter either dug by the Aardvark (Orycteropus afer) or by the Porcupines themselves. Shelters often contain an accumulation of bones carried in by the Porcupines themselves (Skinner & Chimimba 2005).
Ecosystem and cultural services: Cape Porcupines are ecosystem engineers. Foraging diggings or pits obstruct the flow of resources, trapping windborne organic matter and fine soil particles such as silt and clay, which would normally be captured by shrubs and their hummocks. The scale of the engineering effects caused by Cape Porcupines in the Nieuwoudtville region in the Northern Cape is on a par with, or at an even greater scale than, many other ecosystem engineer speciesâ impacts reported in the literature. The fact that Cape Porcupines can dig up to 0.87 m3 of soil / hectare over a year, which is equivalent to 5,859 tonnes / year and that their disturbance can cover up to 510,391 m2 demonstrates the scale and intensity of their disturbance patterns (C. Bragg unpubl. data). Cape Porcupine disturbance created distinct soil property changes in chemicals and moisture, and probably also texture, and therefore creates a mosaic of modified, unmodified and regenerating patches that provide habitats of differing resource availability and physical characteristics (C. Bragg unpubl. data). Additional disturbance impacts of Cape Porcupines take the form of the widespread distribution of their multi-entrance burrows (c. 60 on the 4,000 ha study area; Bragg et al. 2005). Cape Porcupines are also important patch creators, such as shown by Bragg (2003) through their maintenance of the Endangered Sparaxis pillansii geophytic species in the landscape of the Nieuwoudtville region, through their regular diggings and foraging activities.
