TITLE:
Influence of Human Disturbance to the Small Mammal Communities in the Forests
AUTHORS:
Xingyuan Men, Xianguo Guo, Wenge Dong, Nan Ding, Tijun Qian
KEYWORDS:
Forest Restoration, Human Disturbance, Small Mammals, Structural Variables
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Forestry,
Vol.5 No.1,
January
7,
2015
ABSTRACT: Small mammals have been
proposed playing an important role in the energy flow and regeneration of
forest ecosystems. We compared species richness, diversity (H’) of small mammal
communities and abundance of six dominant species of small mammals in disturbed
and protected forests (four age classes: 6 - 10, 11 - 15, 16 - 20 and 31 - 40
years old) in China. We also investigated the structural variables (such as species
richness, cover rate and abundance of shrubs and grasses) in the bottom layer,
which considered to be important for small mammals and might be altered by human
disturbance. The relationships between small mammals and these structural
variables were examined to determine the potential effects of human disturbance
on the small mammals in the restored forests. Our results
indicated that the structure and composition of the vegetation in the bottom
layer were simplified by human disturbance, while the abundance and cover rate
of grasses were significantly increased. Although no significant differences
were observed in species richness of small mammals between the protected and
disturbed forests at the same age, the diversity index of small mammals in the
protected forests was always significantly higher than in the disturbed
forests. Regression showed that the species richness and diversity of small
mammals increased with the species richness of shrubs, and was negatively
correlated to the cover rate of grasses in the bottom layer. Human
disturbance increased the total abundance of small mammals, and the increased cover rate of grasses in
the bottom layer was beneficial to the abundance of small mammals. Obvious
succession of small mammal communities occurred as the protected forest aged.
In the protected forests, small ground-dwelling mammals (A. chevrieri, E. miletus and
M. pahari) were the dominant species in the younger forests. Other mammals
(T. belangeri, D. pernyi and C. erythraeus) gradually became the dominant species
as the protected forests aged. However, in the disturbed forests, the smaller
ground-dwelling mammals (T. belangeri, D. pernyi and C. erythraeus) were
always the dominant species at all ages of the disturbed forests. Regression
indicated that the cover rate of grasses in the bottom layer was beneficial to
the three smaller body size and ground-dwelling small mammal species, while the
shrubs were beneficial to the three bigger body size mammal species.