Staff & Student Pages

Honorary Professor

Professor David H. M. Cumming PhD (Rhodes University) Email: cummingdhm at gmail.com

I graduated from Rhodes University with a BSc in zoology and entomology and a B.Sc. (Hons) in zoology and have been working in wildlife research and conservation in southern Africa since the early 1960s. After an initial spell in freshwater fisheries in Zimbabwe I moved to wildlife and was posted to the remote Sengwa Wildlife Research Area in the Zambezi Valley to work on game-tsetse fly relationships. The planned18-month posting lasted 12 years and provided me with the opportunity complete a PhD on the ecology and behaviour of warthogs (the primary host of tsetse fly) and to establish the Sengwa Wildlife Research Institute. From Sengwa I moved to Harare in 1976 where I was Chief Ecologist and Head of the Branch of Terrestrial Ecology and later Deputy Director for Zimbabwe’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management. From there I moved, in 1988, to take up the post of Project Leader for WWF’s Multispecies Animal Production Systems Project. The project eventually grew into WWF’s Southern Africa Regional Programme during the 1990s. The last decade has been spent working as a consultant to conservation and development NGOs, as a Research Associate in the Tropical Resource Ecology Programme at the University of Zimbabwe, and as an honorary academic here at UCT. Current ecological research interests include large herbivore impacts on savanna systems and the interaction between elephants and termites and how they influence biodiversity and ecosystem processes in miombo woodlands. Large-scale conservation and the management, resilience, and sustainability of transfrontier conservation areas (TFCAs) in southern Africa are also areas of interest and I am involved in the AHEAD (Animal and Human Health for the Environment and Development) programme with support from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

Current Students

Doctoral

Grant Joseph: The influence of termitaria on biodiversity and resilience in herbivore-impacted miombo woodlands: an exploration of the extent to which spatial heterogeneity affects species and functional diversity in disturbed landscapes (Supervisors: Graeme Cumming & David Cumming).

Alexandre Caron: Describing and understanding host-pathogen community interaction at the wildlife/domestic interface. Mammal Research Institute, Department of Zoology, University of Pretoria. Thesis submitted January 2011. (Supervisor: Elissa Cameron (Mammal Research Institute University of Pretoria), Co-supervisors: Serge Morand (CNRS, University of Montpellier), Michel De Garine Witchatitsky (CIRAD), and David Cumming.

Masters

Lenin Chari: The influence of large, vegetated termitaria and large herbivores on spider (Araneae) diversity in miombo woodlands. Tropical Resource Ecology Programme, Biological Sciences, University of Zimbabwe. (Supervisor: David Cumming).

Recent peer-reviewed publications

David Cumming's list of selected publications [PDF]

Joseph, G., Cumming, G.S., Cumming, D.H.M., Mahlangu, Z., Altwegg, R. & Seymour, C. 2011. Large termitaria act as refugia for tall trees, deadwood and cavity-using birds in a miombo woodland. Landscape Ecology 26:439-448. IF 3.293

Osofsky, S., Atkinson, M., Cumming, D. & Kock, M. 2011. One Health Policy Options for Biodiversity, Livelihoods and Transboundary Disease Management in Southern Africa. Ecohealth 7:S93-S94 Suppl. 1. IF 2.089

Valeix, M., Fritz, H., Sabatier, R., Murindagomo, F., Cumming, D., & Duncan, P. 2011. Elephant-induced structural changes in the vegetation and habitat selection by large herbivores in an African savanna. Biological Conservation 144:902-912. IF 3.167