How Do Zebras Have an Effect on the Ecosystem?

Zebras as Prey

• Zebras are a main food item for the carnivores that inhabit the same ecosystem. Without zebras, the populations of lions, hyenas, Cape Hunting dogs, leopards, and even crocodiles would be affected. Each of these predators eats the zebra at all stages of its life, preying on the young, the old and the sick. Predators keep the zebra population healthy, and zebras keep the predators fed.

Zebras and Vegetation

• Zebras are also important to the native growth of the vegetation of the African plains and savannahs where they live. The prefer grasses and other grain plants, but will eat tender leaves and even young shoots and branches. Keeping the plants trimmed lowers fire danger, makes room for new growth and allows other animals to get to parts of vegetation that they feed on. The zebras inhabit a specific niche that keeps the vegetation in their ecosystem healthy.

Zebra Dung

• Zebra dung is spread far and wide across the ecosystem they inhabit. Their dung provides fertilizer for new plant growth; food for insects and small animals; shelter from the elements for small creatures; distributes seeds; and provides important sources of bacteria for both the environment and the animals that prey on the zebra or eat its waste.

Zebras as Migratory Animals

• Over millions of years, zebras have actually shaped the landscape, their migration paths forming channels and paths, leveling hills and dunes, altering the courses of streams and small rivers. Their appetites have changed vegetation, which in turn have affected the landscape, which in turn effects water flow, and so on. The vast number of zebras using their traditional migration paths have effectively altered the topography of the ecosystems in which they inhabit.