Abstract
Pest rodents remain key biotic constraints to cereal crops production in the East African region where they occur, especially in seasons of outbreaks. Despite that, Uganda has scant information on rodents as crop pests to guide effective management strategies.A capture–mark–recapture (CMR) technique was employed to study the ecology of small rodents, specifically to establish the species composition and community structure in a maize‐based agro ecosystem. Trapping of small rodents was conducted in permanent fallow land and cultivated fields, with each category replicated twice making four study grids. At each field, a 60 × 60 m grid was measured and marked with permanent trapping points spaced at 10 × 10 m, making a total of 49 trapping points/grids. Trapping was conducted monthly at 4‐week interval for three consecutive days for two and half years using Sherman live traps.Eleven identified small rodent species and one insectivorous small mammal were recorded with Mastomys natalensis being the most dominant species (over 60.7%). Other species were Mus triton (16.1%), Aethomys hendei (6.7%), Lemniscomys zebra (5.2%), Lophuromys sikapusi (4.8%), Arvicanthis niloticus (0.9%), Gerbilliscus kempi (0.1%), Graphiurus murinus (0.1%), Steatomys parvus (0.1%), Dasymys incomtus (0.1%), and Grammomys dolichurus (0.1%). Spatially, species richness differed significantly (p = 0.0001) between the studied field habitats with significantly higher richness in fallow land compared with cultivated fields.Temporally, total species richness and abundance showed a significant interaction effect over the months, years, and fields of trapping with significantly (p = 0.001) higher abundances during months of wet seasons and in the first and third year of trapping. In terms of community structure, higher species diversity associated more with fallow field habitats but also with certain rare species found only in cultivated fields.Synthesis and applications. Based on these findings, management strategies can be designed to target the key pest species and the most vulnerable habitats thus reducing the impact they can inflict on field crops.
Highlights
Rodents exhibit irregular population dynamics with occasional outbreaks, typically occurring over extensive areas (Fiedler, 1988; Leirs, Verhagen, Verheyen, Mwanjabe, & Mbise, 1996)
A capture–mark–recapture (CMR) technique was employed to study the ecology of small rodents, to establish the species composition and community structure in a maize‐based agro ecosystem
Eleven identified small rodent species and one insectivorous small mammal were recorded with Mastomys natalensis being the most dominant species
Summary
Rodents exhibit irregular population dynamics with occasional outbreaks, typically occurring over extensive areas (Fiedler, 1988; Leirs, Verhagen, Verheyen, Mwanjabe, & Mbise, 1996). Multimammate rats (Mastomys natalensis) are pointed out as the most important rodent pests involved in crop damage in the sub‐Saharan Africa (Fiedler, 1988) though other groups such as Gerbiliscus spp. and Arvicanthis spp. are involved (Makundi et al, 1999) These rodent groups are known for their damages on a diversity of cereal crops with preponderant impact on maize and rice, the crops which are important in food security across the East African region. The knowledge on rodent diversity of rodents and their distribution in the environment will enable design of appropriate management strategies that will target harmful species while sparing the beneficial ones (Singleton, Sudarmaji, Jacob, & Krebs, 2005)
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