Abstract
Simple SummaryInformation on population characteristics of Paraechinusis is valuable for ensuring long term survival of populations, however, studies are currently lacking. Here we investigate the population dynamics of Ethiopian hedgehogs based on a capture study in Qatar by fitting several statistical models. Over the 19 months of the study, we estimate a mean population of 60 hedgehogs, giving a density of 7 hedgehogs per km2 in our 8.5 km2 search area. The monthly abundance of hedgehogs decreased over the study and although survival was constant over the study period, with a mean monthly rate of 75%, there was a decline in the number of new entrants over time. We also studied these parameters over one year, excluding winter, and found that monthly estimates of juvenile and subadult survival decreased over time. We surmise that survival of juveniles may be a factor in the decrease in abundance and there may be implications for the persistence of this population in the future, with human influenced resources playing an important role. We caught between 91.3% and 100% of the estimated population at this site, indicating that our capture methodology was efficient. We conclude that the methodology used here is transferrable to other hedgehog species.Information on population characteristics of Paraechinusis is valuable for ensuring long term survival of populations, however, studies are currently lacking. Here we investigate the population dynamics of Ethiopian hedgehogs based on a capture-mark-recapture study in Qatar by fitting Jolly-Seber and Cormack-Jolly-Seber models. Over the 19 months of the study, we estimate a mean population of 60 hedgehogs, giving a density of 7 hedgehogs per km2 in our 8.5 km2 search area. The monthly abundance of hedgehogs decreased over the study and although survival was constant over the study period, with a mean monthly rate of 75%, there was a decline in the number of new entrants over time. We also studied these parameters over one year, excluding winter, and found that monthly estimates of juvenile and subadult survival decreased over time. We surmise that survival of juveniles may be a factor in the decrease in abundance and there may be implications for the persistence of this population, with anthropogenic influenced resources playing an important role. We caught between 91.3% and 100% of the estimated population at this site, indicating that our capture methodology was efficient. We conclude that the methodology used here is transferrable to other hedgehog species.
Highlights
Hedgehogs are small terrestrial mammals with a spiny integument in the subfamily Erinaceinae, of which 16 species in five genera are currently recognized [1,2]
Many hedgehog species occur in arid and semi-arid environments, such as the “desert hedgehogs” of the genus Paraechinus, and yet, little is known about their ecology and behavior in these arid environments [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
The Ethiopian Hedgehog (Paraechinus aethiopicus, Ehrenberg, 1832), which is well-adapted to arid environments, has a wide distribution across North Africa and the Middle East, including the Arabian Peninsula [1,2], and is the only native hedgehog species in Qatar [14]
Summary
Hedgehogs are small terrestrial mammals with a spiny integument in the subfamily Erinaceinae, of which 16 species in five genera are currently recognized [1,2]. More than 25 years ago, in his monograph of hedgehogs, Reeve (1994) [1] expressed his frustration by stating “There is a frustrating lack of further studies . There has been some work on ecology, behavior, and physiology of non-European hedgehog species in the past 25 years [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13], basic information about their population characteristics is still largely lacking. There are no previous studies on the population density and dynamics of Paraechinus hedgehogs
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