Abstract
Invasive rodents have been responsible for the diffusion worldwide of many zoonotic agents, thus representing major threats for public health. Cities are important hubs for people and goods exchange and are thus expected to play a pivotal role in invasive commensal rodent dissemination. Yet, data about urban rodents' ecology, especially invasive vs. native species interactions, are dramatically scarce. Here, we provide results of an extensive survey of urban rodents conducted in Niamey, Niger, depicting the early stages of rodent bioinvasions within a city. We explore the species-specific spatial distributions throughout the city using contrasted approaches, namely field sampling, co-occurrence analysis, occupancy modelling and indicator geostatistics. We show that (i) two species (i.e. rural-like vs. truly commensal) assemblages can be identified, and that (ii) within commensal rodents, invasive (Rattus rattus and Mus musculus) and native (Mastomys natalensis) species are spatially segregated. Moreover, several pieces of arguments tend to suggest that these exclusive distributions reflect an ongoing native-to-invasive species turn over. The underlying processes as well as the possible consequences for humans are discussed.
Highlights
Since the last decades, urbanization has been dramatically increasing all over the World: while 29% of humanity lived in cities in 1950,53% is currently urban, and 67% will be urban by [1]
Co-occurrence analyses and occupancy modeling. These strongly exclusive distribution patterns were retrieved through the co-occurrence analyses where both Mastomys and Rattus, and Mastomys and Mus
M. musculus had a probability to be captured in a Sherman trap of 0.297
Summary
Urbanization has been dramatically increasing all over the World: while 29% of humanity lived in cities in 1950, ,53% is currently urban, and 67% will be urban by [1]. Main town of Niger and focus of the present study, is no exception: for the period 2005–2010, its agglomeration has ranked 23 in the World and 5 in Africa for the average annual rate of rural-to-urban change (5.99%), and it is expected to rank 12 and 4, respectively, for the period 2010–2015 [1]. This is accompanied by an explosive demographic growth, with ,34,000 inhabitants in up to 650,000 and .1,200,000 in 2000 and 2010, respectively [2]. A satellite image of Niamey was obtained as a part of a Spot Image (scene reference number 506 132 308 121 010 151 32 T, CNES 2008 ß) and was used as a background for our figures
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