Sustaining indigenous Maasai Alalili silvo-pastoral conservation systems for improved community livelihood and biodiversity conservation in East African rangelands

followed by WMA which comprised 32% of Alalili systems. Open areas recorded the least abundance with 14% of private Alalili systems (Table 2). In contrast to communal Alalili, pri- vate Alalili systems were not observed in the NCA. Further analysis within each land use depicted different distribution pattern with regard to class sizes. In GCA, there were 50%, 42%, and 8% of large, small, and medium-sized Alalili systems respectively. In WMA, there were 86% and 14% of small and large sized Alalili respectively and none was recorded under medium-sized category. In open areas, each category of the size comprised of 33.3% of private Alalili system (Fig 8B). On the other hand, small size recorded the highest abundance of private Alalili which cov- ered 55% followed by large size which comprised 36% of private Alalili systems. Medium size recorded the least abundance encompassing 9% of private Alalili systems. The distribution analysis of private Alalili within each size category was done with regard to land use where by 50%, 42%, and 8% of small-sized private Alalili systems were found in WMA, GCA, and open areas respectively. Moreover, 75%, 12.5%, and 12.5% of large-sized private Alalili systems were located in GCA, WMA, and open areas respectively. There was 50% of medium-sized private Alalili systems in both GCA and in open areas while none was recorded in WMA. NCA had no private Alalili silvo-pastoral conservation systems (Table 2). 3.4 Effects of land uses and Alalili types on the size of Alalili systems

There was a significant negative association of Alalili size between Alalili systems in the GCA and those in the NCA (β = -1081.51, S.E. = 183.00, p<0.001). But the association of Alalili size for GCA was not significant to that of both open areas (β = -292.47, S.E. = 172.53, p = 0.0900) and WMA (β = 53.45, S.E. = 293.42, p = 0.8555) (Table 3). Furthermore, a significant negative association of Alalili size between communal and pri- vate Alalili systems was observed (β = -1352.10, S.E. = 361.34, p<0.001). On the other hand, there was a significant negative association of Alalili size between large-sized Alalili systems and those of both small-sized Alalili systems (β = -2538.84, S.E. = 639.66, p<0.001) and medium-sized Alalili systems (β = -1795.52, S.E. = 615.46, p = 0.0035; Table 3). Table 2. Summary of Alalili abundance across types, land use, and size categories. Land use Type of Alalili Abundance by Class size Total Large Medium Small GCA Communal 16 6 25 47 Private 6 1 5 12 NCA Communal 2 2 20 24 Private 0 0 0 0 Open Areas Communal 1 2 13 16 Private 1 1 1 3 WMA Communal 3 0 7 10 Private 1 0 6 7 Total Communal 22 10 65 97 Private 8 2 12 22 Total 30 12 77 119 *Abbreviations: GCA, Game Controlled areas; NCA Ngorongoro Conservation Area; WMA, Wildlife Management Area. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0303649.t002 PLOS ONE Sustaining Alalili systems in rangelands of East Africa PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0303649 May 16, 2024 14 / 24