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S. 2005. Diurnal activity patterns of coypu in an urban habitat. Acta Theriologica 50: 207-211.The ability of species to adapt to changing environmental conditions is a crucial need for surviving in human influenced landscapes. Especially non-indigenous species, which are flexible in their behaviour, may successfully enter and establish in new habitats. We compared the activity patterns of the invasive coypu Myocastor coypus (Molina, 1782) in an urban habitat in Germany with patterns observed in its native distribution range in South America as well as in areas, where it was introduced. In summer 1998 and winter 1999 a radio tracking study was carried out on six adult coypus, supplemented by count data on untagged animals. Whereas main activity in non-urban populations was recorded at night including dusk and dawn, coypus in the urban habitat were active during the day and early evening. We never observed animals between midnight and dawn. This reversal of activity patterns is attributable to deposition of human food in the city area during the daytime.

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The spatial organization of individuals, or groups of individuals, within a population can provide valuable information about social organization and population dynamics. We analysed the spatial distribution of nests of the sociable weaver (Philetairus socius) on two farms in the Kalahari. Sociable weavers build large communal nests on big savannah trees, forming a pattern of trees with and without nests. We used two spatial statistics, Ripley's K and the pair correlation function, to describe characteristics of the point patterns over a range of distances. (i) At distances of 200 and 300 m, communal nests were clustered. (ii) At distances greater than 1000 m, communal nests were regularly distributed. These findings are independent of the spatial distribution of trees. Furthermore, we used Moran's I to analyse spatial autocorrelation of nest sizes. We expected negative autocorrelation because of competition between nests. But on both farms there was no significant autocorrelation of nest sizes for any distance class. The regular distribution observed at larger distances may indicate competition and/or territoriality among different nests, but the lack of spatial autocorrelation between nest sizes suggests that these interactions may happen between nest clusters rather than between single nests. This was confirmed by significant clustering of nests on small scales. We thus suggest, that colonies of P. socius consist of several nests on adjacent trees forming a cluster of subcolonies. The question why sociable weavers establish subcolonies instead of adding more chambers to the natal nest, could not simply be answered by limitation of nesting space. We suggest a strategy to avoid costs due to increasing colony size.

The black-tailed tree rat, Thallomys nigricauda, is one of the few arboreal rodents inhabiting the southern African savannahs. During three field campaigns in 2001 and 2002 we collected data on the biology and ecology of T. nigricauda in the Thornveld savannah of the Molopo Nature Reserve (NW Province, South Africa). T. nigricauda lives a solitarily lifestyle in the Molopo Nature Reserve. Diet analyses shows that they are folivorous, specializing on leaves of Acacia mellifera and Acacia luederitzii. Male and female animals have a similar body size (E80 g). Mean age at weaning was 30 days and mean litter size at this age was 1.8. Monthly survival rates varied between 0.25 and 0.86. Density was estimated to be 0.5-1 individual ha À1 . Overall, our results show that the basic ecological characteristics of this arboreal rodent are fairly similar to other rodent species.