Mammal Research最新文献

The habitat accommodation model (HAM) is a theoretical framework that predicts wildlife community recovery based on their habitat requirements. While post-fire habitat-related research is well documented in the Mediterranean basin, studies specifically focusing on HAM are scarce. Here, we described the small mammal assemblage in a Mediterranean area ~3 years after a fire, specifically examining three functional small mammalian categories: ground-foraging insectivorous, ground-foraging herbivorous/granivorous, and arboreal-foraging species. The study was conducted in Monte Pisano (Italy), where fire burnt ~12 km² in September 2018. A stratified random sampling was adopted, basing on burnt status and forest type. In each of the 50 sites, during late spring-summer 2021, 12 hair-tubes were deployed, and collected hairs were taxa-attributed based on morphology. A presence/absence dataset was built, and db-RDA was used to explore assemblage composition, and single-species occupancy models to test specific hypotheses. The relative abundance of ground-foraging herbivorous/granivorous was higher in the burnt area, characterised by a dense undergrowth, which could be related to anti-predatory strategies and food opportunities. Insectivorous could be in a recolonisation phase, masking their earlier absence, which could explain why their abundance was not associated with any factor tested. Arboreal-foraging species were associated with forest type, indicating a primary role for tree cover and other factors such as rocky cover and likely in situ survival. The HAM was overall confirmed also in Mediterranean basin ecosystems. This may facilitate predictions about post-fire animal successions, which in turn may provide valuable insights into post-fire management practices and biodiversity conservation strategies.

Deforestation remains the most pervasive driver of biodiversity erosion across tropical forests. Understanding how species can cope with such habitat changes is particularly important along the rapidly expanding agricultural frontiers. To do so, we used a functional perspective examining small mammal responses to habitat loss, fragmentation, and degradation across the ‘Arc of Deforestation’ in the Southern Brazilian Amazon. Small mammals were surveyed using a combination of conventional and pitfall traps across 20 forest fragments—ranging from 42 to 4743 ha—in addition to two relatively continuous forest sites (> 7000 ha). These fragments lie isolated by a cattle pasture matrix of varying grazing intensity. We then analysed taxonomic and functional diversity patterns—represented by Simpson Diversity and Rao Quadratic entropy indices—in Generalised Linear Models containing local- to landscape-scale predictors of variation. Further, we used a functional trait composition approach based on community-weighted mean trait values to depict and predict small mammal functional variations across this degradation gradient. From a total of 847 individuals recorded belonging to 24 taxa, functional responses tended to follow the taxonomic diversity, both increasing with fragment area. The functional dimension further was promoted by low fire-related disturbance. Functional trait composition was mainly driven by habitat quality, represented by tree density, arthropod biomass, and fire-related disturbance. Our results reinforce that small forest fragments sustain depauperate small mammal assemblages both taxonomically and functionally. Accounting for habitat quality further allows for boosting the persistence across functional groups. Our findings can be used to improve the efficiency of management practices thereby maximising the multiple dimensions of small mammal diversity and their associated ecosystem services across tropical deforestation frontiers.

Abstract

Rodents are significant animals in the field of science and serve as common study models in several disciplines. However, their behaviours are challenging to observe in the wild due to their anti-predator behaviour, especially regarding feeding behaviour for subterranean species (voles, naked mole-rat). Nevertheless, feeding behaviour is crucial for the study of rodent ecology, including applied research on pest control, habitat management of endangered species, or more fundamental research on cyclical population dynamics. To address this issue, a tool was developed to test how wild voles interact with food. This novel camera trapping device was named the Campascope. Its utilisation enables the avoidance of captive conditions that could introduce biases and facilitates the testing of exogenous factors that may modify animals’ feeding behaviour, such as the floral composition of a meadow, distance from a landscape feature, or altitude. These exogenous factors are not easily testable in captivity. In this study, we successfully captured high-quality observations of the behaviour of the fossorial form of water voles, using the Campascope device. In this article, we present the features and application of the device on Arvicola amphibius, which may also be used for studying other small mammal species.

Expanding knowledge on natural history of carnivores allows to understand mechanisms species developed for survival and improve decision-making aiming conservation. Studies on eco-morphological aspects of skunks, such Conepatus amazonicus, are scarce and usually based on small sampling size. We assessed roadkill individuals, camera trap records, and biometric data to describe the feeding ecology, activity period, and morphology of striped hog-nosed skunk in agroecosystems and protected areas in Central Brazil. Invertebrates represented critical items in the diet in agroecosystems, and due to an intermediate niche breadth (0.545), skunks could not be classified as specialists or generalists. Males and females have total niche overlap (0.94), and the diversity of items was not affected by proximity to urban centres. Animals develop their activities during the night, with 93% (n = 71) of records from sunset to sunrise. There were significant sex differences in the body masses ((t) = − 3.7151; d.f. = 29; P < 0.0001). Males (mean = 2.56 kg) were 30% heavier than females (mean = 1.96 kg), allowing us to infer the existence of sexual dimorphism in C. amazonicus. Foot size and dentition were also larger in males, corroborating the sexual selection hypothesis. Behavioural and morphological adaptations favour predation on insects, prey of low physical resistance, which are also available in agroecosystems. This is the first study to report sexual dimorphism in C. amazonicus. Our results fill a gap in the knowledge of a species that plays a unique role for ecosystem functioning, suggesting that skunks represent the primary medium-sized omnivorous-insectivorous organism occupying the Brazilian Savanna.

Despite their economic, cultural, and ecological significance, the phylogenetic relationships among North American deer remain uncertain, due in part to discordance between phylogenies built from mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and nuclear markers. Nuclear markers resolve mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) and white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) as reciprocally monophyletic, but mtDNA results in a mixed topology. These two genomic regions have heretofore been analyzed in isolation. We compared phylogenies built from mtDNA cytochrome b and single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from the mitogenome and nuclear (ultraconserved elements, UCEs) markers from the same individuals to investigate mito-nuclear discordance within and between taxa in the genus Odocoileus. A Cyt b tree shows haplotype sharing between O. hemionus and O. virginianus. Mitochondrial DNA SNPs separated only O. hemionus and O. virginianus, whereas nuclear SNPs separated O. hemionus, O. virginianus, and the distinct subspecies Coues deer (O. v. couesi), Key deer (O. v. clavium), and Sitka black-tailed deer (O. h. sitkensis) plus Columbian black-tailed deer (O. h. columbianus). We found less support for O. h. columbianus as a distinct taxon, which had signs of introgression with nominate O. h. hemionus. The well-established paraphyly of mtDNA haplotypes from O. virginianus and O. hemionus is confirmed with comparisons of mtDNA and nuclear-encoded SNPs from the same individuals. Our attempts to explain mito-nuclear discordance among Odocoileus deer remain inconclusive. We suspect incomplete lineage sorting of a recent evolutionary split may explain this pattern, although mtDNA capture via ancient hybridization is also a possibility. Niche models suggested allopatric refugia at the Last Glacial Maximum for these taxa except for a parapatric or sympatric distribution estimated for O. virginianus and O. v. clavium and O. hemionus and O. h. columbianus, the latter of which might explain the modern hybrid zone.

In south-western Germany, a territorial single male golden jackal (Canis aureus) was repeatedly photographed showing social interaction with a red fox (Vulpes vulpes) female and her cubs. This unusual behaviour was documented in two subsequent years (August–September 2020 and May–August 2021). The interspecific actions are not limited to encounters of the two species but include interactions such as feeding and related sociopositive behaviours. Thirty-two observations with both species appearing together were recorded within the study period. The observed behaviour raises questions about the coexistence of both species and on interspecific behaviour of wild canids in general. Social isolation of the observed male golden jackal could be one of the potential drivers for the interaction, as Germany is at the current edge of golden jackal distribution in central Europe.

Despite the high diversity of bats in neotropics, traditional methods such as mist nets, harp traps and roost detection have limitations in capturing that diversity in a landscape, with most detected species restricted to those that forage in the undergrowth or enclosed spaces. Therefore, acoustic records become a tool that complements and enhances the efforts to get more complete bat inventories while avoiding alterations in usual foraging activities and disruption in their life cycles. This study describes the acoustic parameters (spectral and temporal variables) of the echolocation pulses of insectivorous bats to characterise different species of bats in Southwest Colombia acoustically. We recorded echolocation calls between December 2017 and May 2020 in the Andean and Pacific regions of the Department of Nariño. We analysed 81 sequences of echolocation calls from eight bat species belonging to three families: Vespertilionidae, Molossidae and Emballonuridae. We perform recordings on free-flying bats with identity corroboration by capture for recording in flight rooms and examination in the hand. Myotis riparius and Lasiurus blossevillii were recorded for the first time in the Nariño Department. M. albescens, M. keaysi, M. riparius and L. blossevillii (Vespertilionidae) had pulses of frequency modulated (FM) with a quasi-constant frequency (QCF) ending; Molossus molossus, Tadarida brasiliensis and Promops centralis (Molossidae) had pulses with constant frequency (CF) and QCF; and Saccopteryx bilineata (Emballonuridae) had pulses with QCF. This study contributes to the efforts to facilitate the identification of insectivorous bats of the Neotropics using the acoustic monitoring approaches, represents a reference to compare the acoustic studies in Southwestern Colombia and contributes to increasing our knowledge of the bat diversity in the region.

Accurate species identification is crucial for ecological research and effective wildlife management. Advances in molecular genetic tools enable this, even for cryptic species complexes that are often morphologically confusing or indistinguishable. However, the costs of these methods and sequencing remain prohibitive for many researchers, particularly in less developed regions. The aim of this study was to test whether ISSR-PCR markers can be used to distinguish three similar horseshoe bat species that are often misidentified and occur in sympatry in Serbia. Samples from 64 Rhinolophus euryale, R. blasii, and R. mehelyi bats were identified using this ISSR-PCR approach, and species identifications were additionally confirmed by sequencing D-loop fragment of mitochondrial DNA. ISSR-PCR yielded species-specific band patterns on the agarose gel that allowed the differentiation of three medium-sized horseshoe bat species. This approach does not require sequencing, making it a quick and inexpensive tool for the genetic identification of these species, and complements already existing methods. There is potential to scale up this method to other cryptic species complexes, reducing misidentifications that lead to inaccurate population trend assessments and have knock-on effects on our ability to monitor and conserve wildlife, especially rare and endangered species.