4.3. Rainfall as a driver of temporal fluctuations of rodent and shrew species abundance along a degradation gradient
The observed rodent and shrew species fluctuation, is indicative that rodent species abundance follows seasonal busts in food which also follows rainfall patterns. Mesele & Bekele (2012) noted that fluctuations in species abundance is a result of seasonal variation in vegetation structure, ground cover and other related environmental variables which are also driven by rainfall patterns. Alternation in abundance of species occupying the same habitat (Figure 4) could be as a result of resource partitioning mainly through dietary separation of species with similar requirements (Symes et al. 2013).
Rainfall is a known factor that drives rodent and shrew demography in various ecosystems (Thomas & Richard 1999, Delany 2008, Pavey & Nano 2013), however in this study, fluctuations in species abundance in forested environments, did not correlate to fluctuations in rainfall as compared to habitats outside forest. This is because forest ecosystems create a micro climate usually independent of the overall climate of an area (Pieter et al. 2021). Comparisons of abundant species in forest and adjacent habitats revealed similar trends suggesting that fluctuations in abundance of forest species may not be explained by weather patterns alone but maybe a combination of both biotic and abiotic factors (Ward-Fear et al. 2021). With the degradation and microhabitat modification, forest resident species population will be forced to follow fluctuations in weather variables calling for adaptations. Species that cannot quickly adapt will most likely be eliminated from the ecosystem leading to local extinctions. (Ocampo-Peñuela et al. 2020).