Key Laboratory of Ecological Adaptive Evolution and Conservation on Animals-Plants in Southwest Mountain Ecosystem of Yunnan Province Higher Institutes College, School of Life Science of Yunnan Normal University, Kunming; 650500, China
In order to investigate the rules and influencing factors on the number changes of small rodents in different years and in different habitats in Jianchuan area from Yunnan province, more than 100,000 rat cages were set up in different habitats (indoor, vegetable garden, agricultural land and shrub) from 2002 to 2014, and 15338 small mammals were captured. The main samll rodents were Rattus norvegicus, Rattus flavipectus, Apodemus speciosus and Micromys minutus. In different habitats, numbers of Rattus norvegicus and Rattus flavipectus were more in indoor and vegetable garden than that of agricultural land and shrub, while Apodemus speciosus and Micromys minutus were major in agricultural land and shrub, and less in vegetable garden, but none animals of these two rodents were captured in indoor. In different years, numbers of Rattus norvegicus and Rattus flavipectus were highest in 2003 and 2013, and were stable in other years. Numbers of Apodemus speciosus and Micromys minutus were highest in 2002, 2005 and 2014, which were lowest in 2004. All of the results indicated that climate changes and habitat conditions were the main important factors to affected population changes of small rodents in Jianchuan.
Keywords: Rodents; Climate changes; Habitat