Mt. Meru is Tanzania's second highest mountain and the ninth highest in Africa. The distribution and abundance of small mammals on this massif are poorly known. Here we document the distribution of shrews and rodents along an elevational gradient on the southeastern versant of Mt. Meru. Five sites were sampled with elevational center points of 1950, 2300, 2650, 3000, and 3600 m, using a systema...

Mt Kilimanjaro is Africa's highest mountain, and an icon for a country famous for its mammalian fauna. The distribution and abundance of small mammals on the mountain are poorly known. Here we document the distribution of shrews and rodents along an elevational gradient on the southeastern versant of Kilimanjaro. Five sites were sampled with elevational center points of 2000, 2500, 3000, 3500 a...

We conducted a survey of rodents and ticks in Brazos County in east-central Texas to learn more about native fauna that may be involved in enzootic transmission of pathogens that can cause tick-borne diseases in this region. Our objectives were to describe the species richness and seasonal activity of rodents, as well as to document their infestation with ticks over time. We captured 5 rodent s...

Abstract Overhunting is a leading contemporary driver of tropical forest wildlife loss. The absence or extremely low densities large-bodied vertebrates disrupts plant-animal mutualisms and consequently degrades key ecosystem services. Understanding patterns defaunation therefore crucial given that most forests worldwide are now “half-empty”. Here we investigate changes in vertebrate community c...

Introduction: Rodents are the primary source of several zoonotic infectious diseases. The upsurge of rodents’ population in Najaf Abad Village of Nishapur County, northeastern Iran in February 2014 raised the concerns about the outbreak of diseases such as plague and tularemia. This report discusses the lessons learned from the outburst of rodents’ population in that village and rep...

Human hunting is widespread in tropical forests and can substantially alter the plant-animal interactions that drive tree recruitment. Seed predation is a strong determinant of plant reproductive success, but it remains unclear how defaunation modifies this process. We examined the effects of hunting-induced defaunation on seed predation and seedling establishment, using replicated exclosure tr...