Publishing House SB RAS:

Publishing House SB RAS:

Address of the Publishing House SB RAS:
Morskoy pr. 2, 630090 Novosibirsk, Russia



Advanced Search

Contemporary Problems of Ecology

2010 year, number 1

Dynamics of the Species Structure of Small Mammals in Urban Territories

N. F. Chernousova
Keywords: small mammals, rodents, common shrew, urbanization, dynаmics, species structure
Pages: 149-156

Abstract

Studies of the long-term dynamics of different small mammal species in connection with the peculiarities of forest ecosystems transformed under the effect of urbanization showed that a higher rodent number is characteristic of urban communities due to hemisynanthropic species of genus Apodemus (Sylvemus).
It was established that small mammals have similar dynamics in the park-forests in the same type of forest site conditions. However, this regularity is broken inside the city. Stressful conditions of the city environment turn out to be a more powerful factor affecting the structure and dynamics of small mammals than the type of forest site conditions.
The processes taking place in the ecotones at the boundary of city buildings and neighboring forest result in the transformation of plant communities; as a consequence, the structure and dynamics of small mammal communities get changed. Transformation of the lower plant layers ruins the environment of some species and creates favorable conditions for others. Enrichment of community species and an increase in shrub layer density displaces the gradient of habitation conditions to the species usually avoiding coniferous forest: wood and field mice.