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Restoration of degraded natural areas to enhance genera conservation is widely gaining
pace; however, effort geared at assessing response of animal community particularly in
restored forests is still low. I used a CMR method to trap rodents and measured vegetation
characteristics to examine the association of vegetation characteristics with rodent
abundance, diversity and occupancy in a secondary forest 20 years after restoration. the
results found first, five rodent genera were in the secondary forest and three genera in the
primary forest and that, abundance of the most dominant genera Praomys sp. was
significantly higher in primary than in secondary forest. In addition, results showed
highest genera diversity in the secondary forest than the primary forest, supporting earlier
studies in this forest reserve. Second, rodent community in the study area showed strong
association with some measured local habitat characteristics in the secondary forest,
suggesting the importance of forest restoration on the small mammal assembly in restored
habitats. Third, in occupancy modeling, results showed detection probability strongly
influenced by habitat type. In contrast, the study revealed that herbaceous cover, shrub
cover and number of trees were the most important vegetation characteristics driving
rodent occupancy in the studied forests. Fourth, the negative generalized linear models
revealed number of saplings and percent shrub cover were the strongest predictors of
rodent abundance across the study sites while the habitat types strongly predicted the
Praomys sp. abundance in the studied area. Based on study findings, the forest restoration
improves rodent genera coming back in restored areas, continuing to restore degraded
areas elsewhere is an increasing priority. |
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