Correlating rodent community structure with ecological integrity, Tussen-die-Riviere Nature Reserve, Free State province, South Africa

作     者：Nico L.AVENANT Paolo CAVALLINI 

作者机构：Department of MammalogyNational Museumand Centre for Environmental ManagementUniversity of the Free StateBloemfonteinSouth Africa Faunalia ConsulenzePontedera PI 56025Italy 

出 版 物：《Integrative Zoology》 (整合动物学（英文版）)

年 卷 期：2007年第2卷第4期

页      面：212-219页

核心收录：

学科分类：0202[经济学-应用经济学] 02[经济学] 020205[经济学-产业经济学] 

基　　金：National Research Foundation of South Africa 

主　　题：community structure diversity ecological integrity rodents species richness 

摘      要：Rodents form a vital component of Free State ecosystems and monitoring them may be a relatively quick andinexpensive method of indicating healthy or unhealthy ecosystem functioning. Using removal trapping, we havestudied rodent seasonal abundance, species richness, Shannon diversity, and evenness of rodents in four habitats inthe Tussen-die-Riviere Nature Reserve, inspected the most successful sampling method for these habitats, andreport on their community structure and how it is related to an Ecological Index (≈ EI value of grassland). Bothspecies richness and Shannon diversity increased significantly with EI value. The indicator species Mastomyscoucha occurred at all plots, but contributed the largest proportion of the total captures (ca. 80%) at the plot withlowest EI value. Other results important for small mammal monitoring and collecting are that trap success andspecies richness was highest in autumn. This study also confirms that four days and nights continuous trapping isessential for the effective sampling of rodent communities in Free State grasslands. Our results partially supportexpectations that the number of specialist species increases with succession, M. coucha dominance acts as anindicator of habitat disturbance, rodent species richness conforms to Tilman’s hump-shaped curve model, and addsto a baseline of diversity indices in a variety of grassland habitats.