Serengeti over 80 percent of the Serengeti. The southeastern area lies in the rain shadow of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area's highlands and is composed of shortgrass treeless plains with abundant small dicots. Soils are high in nutrients, overlying a shallow calcareous hardpan due to natrocarbonatite eruptions from Ol Doinyo Lengai. A gradient of soil depth northwestward across the plains results in changes in the herbaceous community and taller grass. About west, acacia woodlands appear suddenly and stretch west to Lake Victoria and north to the Loita Plains, north of the Maasai Mara National Reserve. The sixteen acacia species vary over this
Serengeti for the great migration, the Serengeti is also famous for its abundant large predators. The ecosystem is home to over 3,000 lions ("Panthera leo"), 1,000 leopards ("Panthera pardus"), and 7,700 to 8,700 spotted hyenas ("Crocuta crocuta).".The East African cheetah are also present in Serengeti. Wild dogs are relatively scarce in much of the Serengeti. This is particularly true in places such as Serengeti National Park (where they became extinct in 1992), in which lions and spotted hyenas, predators that steal wild dog kills and are a direct cause of wild dog mortality, are abundant. The Serengeti is also home to