Influence of habitat characteristics on rodent abundance, diversity and occupancy in a restored Lulanda forest reserve, Southern Tanzania

Masters Thesis

Restoration of degraded natural areas to enhance genera conservation is widely gaining pace; however, effort geared at assessing response of animal community particularly in restored forests is still low. I used a CMR method to trap rodents and measured vegetation characteristics to examine the association of vegetation characteristics with rodent abundance, diversity and occupancy in a secondary forest 20 years after restoration. the results found first, five rodent genera were in the secondary forest and three genera in the primary forest and that, abundance of the most dominant genera Praomys sp. was significantly higher in primary than in secondary forest. In addition, results showed highest genera diversity in the secondary forest than the primary forest, supporting earlier studies in this forest reserve. Second, rodent community in the study area showed strong association with some measured local habitat characteristics in the secondary forest, suggesting the importance of forest restoration on the small mammal assembly in restored habitats. Third, in occupancy modeling, results showed detection probability strongly influenced by habitat type. In contrast, the study revealed that herbaceous cover, shrub cover and number of trees were the most important vegetation characteristics driving rodent occupancy in the studied forests. Fourth, the negative generalized linear models revealed number of saplings and percent shrub cover were the strongest predictors of rodent abundance across the study sites while the habitat types strongly predicted the Praomys sp. abundance in the studied area. Based on study findings, the forest restoration improves rodent genera coming back in restored areas, continuing to restore degraded areas elsewhere is an increasing priority.

African Centre of Excellency Innovative Rodent Pest Management and Biosensor Technology (ACEII-IRP and BTD).