Species composition, relative abundance and habitat association of non-volant small mammals in Menz Guassa Community Conservation Area, central Ethiopia

Abstract

Small mammals are a diverse group of animals and studying such group is vital. This study documents species composition, relative abundance and habitat association of non-volant small mammals in Menz Guassa Community Conservation Area, central Ethiopia. Data were collected using capture mark-release technique in different habitats of the study area from October 2019 to August 2020 and analysed by descriptive statistics and Shannon-Wiener diversity index. A total of 724 individuals of rodents and insectivores were sampled over 1176 trap nights. Of these 418 individuals were newly captured while the remaining 306 were recaptured with an overall trap success of 35.5 %. Five species of rodents namely Lophuromys flavopunctatus, Stenocephalemys griseicauda, Otomys typu s, Arvicanthis blicki and Dendromus lovati , and two species of insectivores, Crocidura baileyi and C. thalia were sampled. The most abundant species identified in the study was L. flavopunctatus followed by S. griseicauda , while the least was D. lovati with relative abundances of 66.7 %, 14.8 % and 0.2 %, respectively. The rodent and insectivore species were statistically significantly associated with their habitats (χ 2 = 10.44, df = 3, p < 0.05) with high association recorded in Euryops habitat 128 (30.6 %). High diversity of small mammals was recorded in Erica-Festuca dominated habitat (H’ = 1.176) followed by Festuca-Euryops habitat (H’= 1.114) and the least was recorded in Festuca habitats (H’= 0.977). Small mammals showed variation in abundance across habitats between seasons but the difference was not statistically significant (F (1, 6) = 0.017, p > 0.05). Most of the rodents and insectivores were sampled during the night. Stenocephalemys griseicauda , D. lovati and C. baileyi were exclusively nocturnal while O. typus and L. flavopunctatus were predominantly diurnal in activity. There was relatively higher small mammal diversity in Menz Guassa Community Conservation Area. Further molecular study needs to be conducted to identify more non-volant small mammals in the area, more especially cryptic species.