Seasonal demography of different black rat ( Rattus rattus ) populations under contrasting natural habitats in Guadeloup
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Seasonal demography of different black rat (Rattus rattus) populations under contrasting natural habitats in Guadeloupe (Lesser Antilles, Caribbean) Jean Goedert 1
&
David Cochard 1 & Arnaud Lenoble 1 & Olivier Lorvelec 2 & Benoît Pisanu 3,4 & Aurélien Royer 5
Received: 18 April 2020 / Accepted: 16 July 2020 # Mammal Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, Bialowieza, Poland 2020
Abstract The black rat (Rattus rattus) is one of the most widespread rodents on islands worldwide, introduced over the last five centuries. However, reliable information concerning how biotic or abiotic factors influence key parameters of black rat population biology in insular contexts is currently unavailable. Here we aim to document the relative abundance of rat populations and evaluate how the age structure and the body mass of adult individual vary seasonally in different forest environments under contrasting climatic conditions. Rats were captured during wet and dry seasons in 2017–2018 at one or two sites in each of the four natural forested environments of Guadeloupe, all of which experience widely different annual rainfall (semi-deciduous dry forest, seasonal evergreen forest, mountain rainforest and Pterocarpus officinalis swamp forest). A total of 171 black rats were captured during a 1018 trap-night effort. Overall capture results confirm this species to thrive in all the natural forested environments we investigated. With the exception of the P. officinalis swamp forest, black rat populations reach higher relative abundances during the wet season due to juvenile and sub-adult recruitment at the end of the dry season. In contrast, in the P. officinalis swamp forest, breeding activity continues during both seasons and relative rat abundance appears to fluctuate less seasonally. The relative abundance of adult black rats is also higher in the seasonal semi-evergreen and rainforests that experience little or no water stress. These contexts therefore appear the most favourable for sustaining black rat populations, a pattern that is most likely connected to a combination of climatic and/or edaphic parameters that condition the year-round availability and abundance of food resources. Keywords Black rat . Lesser Antilles . Ecology . Population . Precipitation Communicated by: Joanna Stojak Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s13364-020-00523-w) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Jean Goedert [email protected] 1
UMR CNRS 5199, PACEA, Université de Bordeaux, Bâtiment B2 Allée Geoffroy Saint Hilaire CS, 50023 33615 Pessac cedex, France
2
ESE, Ecology and Ecosystems Health, INRAE, Agrocampus Ouest, 35042 Rennes, France
3
Centre d’Ecologie et des Sciences de la Conservation (CESCO UMR 7204), Sorbonne Universités, MNHN, CNRS, UPMC, 43 rue Buffon, CP51, 75005 Paris, France
4
UMS 2006 Patrimoine Naturel, AFB, MNHN, CNRS, 36 rue Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 75005 Paris, France
5
Biogéosciences, UMR 6282 CN
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