4.3. Rainfall as a driver of temporal fluctuations of rodent and
shrew species abundance along a degradation gradient
The observed rodent and shrew species fluctuation, is indicative that
rodent species abundance follows seasonal busts in food which also
follows rainfall patterns. Mesele & Bekele (2012) noted that
fluctuations in species abundance is a result of seasonal variation in
vegetation structure, ground cover and other related environmental
variables which are also driven by rainfall patterns. Alternation in
abundance of species occupying the same habitat (Figure 4) could be as a
result of resource partitioning mainly through dietary separation of
species with similar requirements (Symes et al. 2013).
Rainfall is a known factor that drives rodent and shrew demography in
various ecosystems (Thomas & Richard 1999, Delany 2008, Pavey & Nano
2013), however in this study, fluctuations in species abundance in
forested environments, did not correlate to fluctuations in rainfall as
compared to habitats outside forest. This is because forest ecosystems
create a micro climate usually independent of the overall climate of an
area (Pieter et al. 2021). Comparisons of abundant species in
forest and adjacent habitats revealed similar trends suggesting that
fluctuations in abundance of forest species may not be explained by
weather patterns alone but maybe a combination of both biotic and
abiotic factors (Ward-Fear et al. 2021). With the degradation and
microhabitat modification, forest resident species population will be
forced to follow fluctuations in weather variables calling for
adaptations. Species that cannot quickly adapt will most likely be
eliminated from the ecosystem leading to local extinctions.
(Ocampo-Peñuela et al. 2020).