Diversity, abundance and habitat association of small mammals in Maze National Park, Ethiopia

Abstract

We investigated species composition, relative abundance, habitat association and density of small mammals in Maze National Park, Ethiopia. Data were collected using the capture-mark-recapture technique in three representative habitat types (grassland, bushland and riverine forest) from November 2021 to August 2022. Descriptive statistics and indices for diversity and evenness were used to analyse the data. A total of 679 rodents and insectivores were collected during a span of 2 646 trap nights. Of these, 534 (76.64%) individuals were newly captured, while 145 (23.36%) were recaptures. Overall trap success was 20.18%. Five species of rodents were captured: four from the family Muridae (Mastomys natalensis, Arvicanthis niloticus, Rattus rattus and Lemniscomys macculus) and one (Xerus rutilus) from the family Sciuridae; and one insectivore species (Elephantulus rufescens) from the family Macroscelididae. Mastomys natalensis (178; 33.3%) was the most abundant, while X. rutilus (1; 0.2%) and E. rufescens (1; 0.2%) were the least abundant. Small mammal species varied significantly with habitat types (χ2 = 6.101, df = 2, p ≤ 0.05), with the highest count in the bushland habitat (197; 36.89 %) and the lowest in riverine forest (152; 28.46%). The bushland and riverine forest habitats supported the highest (H’ = 1.04) and the lowest (H’ = 0.506) diversity of small mammal species, respectively. A relatively high number of small mammal species were caught during the wet season (n = 336) compared to the dry season (n = 198). Future studies using more trapping grids covering additional habitat types and genetic analyses for small mammal species confirmation are necessary for a better understanding of the Park’s small mammal fauna.