Small-mammal abundance and species diversity: land use and seasonal influences in the Serengeti Ecosystem, Tanzania

Land use, habitat suitability, and seasonality can fundamentally shape small-mammal abundance, species richness, diversity, evenness, composition. However, how these characteristics of small mammals are determined by land type, rainfall is still poorly understood for most ecosystems. We analyze use (protection in a national park, pastoralism, crop agriculture), influence relative diversity the Tanzania Serengeti Ecosystem. used 141 live traps to capture 612 wet dry seasons 2017 2018. Relative abundance was higher pastoral than park or agricultural season all three types. Species richness were highest middling land, lowest land. The high primarily due numerical dominance two generalist shrubland (grass rat Arvicanthis niloticus ) cropland (multimammate Mastomys natalensis ), resulting low diversity. High indicate heterogeneity, whereas during reflects food availability soon after harvests. Thus, human activities apparently exert deleterious effects on some specialist as result reduced heterogeneity while promoting African savanna increased reduces mammal increasing risk human–small conflicts. offer several testable hypotheses motivated our results.