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The Mara-Serengeti ecosystem, which includes Kenya's Maasai Mara and Tanzania's Serengeti National Park, is one of the most famous and wildlife-rich areas in Africa.

Every year, millions of animals move across the land in search of fresh grass and water, creating an incredible spectacle known as the Great Migration. This migration sustains hundreds of predators and scavengers like vultures. The wildlife is also important for local governments and communities that rely on funds from tourism and conservation efforts.

All this activity—the well-being of wildlife, the water they drink and the vegetation they feed on—depends on weather patterns. Extreme weather phenomena, therefore, can wreak havoc on the workings of the ecosystem.

I'm part of a team from the universities of Hohenheim and Groningen, Free University of Berlin, the IUCN, the Indian Institute of Management in Udaipur and the Kenya Meteorological Department which has been studying weather patterns in the Mara-Serengeti ecosystem since 1913. Our new study, published in PLOS Climate, has found that it has been experiencing major changes.

Over the past six decades, rainfall has been above average and there have also been recurrent severe droughts, erratic extremely wet conditions and a temperature rise of 4.8°C to 5.8°C.

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