Differential responses of small mammals to fragmentation in a Thailand tropical forest

The effects of various forest uses on small mammal communities in Sarawak, Malaysia

“…Small mammal communities in new fallow had comparatively more house rats and lesser and slender treeshrews. The house rat is a human-associated species that is adapted to disturbance (Lynam, 1997;Lynam and Billick, 1999). The high occurrence of rats in new fallow, where disturbance had recently occurred and recovery from the disturbance had not yet advanced, is not unexpected.…”

“…In Southeast Asia, forest is used for various human purposes, including traditional uses; and as a result, both deforestation and anthropogenic use are spreading at the landscape-level. Much research has been performed regarding the effects of deforestation or forest use on changes in wildlife species composition or abundance, such as that in logged forests (Heydon and Bulloh, 1996;Johns, 1996;Willott et al, 2000), fragmented forests (Lynam, 1997;Cosson et al, 1999;Lynam and Billick, 1999;Harrington et al, 2001), or among developmental stages after the cessation of cultivation (Wilkie and Finn, 1990;Medellín and Equihua, 1998). However, in reality, a landscape is a complex assemblage of these forest types, which differ in both the quality and intensity of disturbance and the recovery phase after use.…”

Rodent Diversity in a Highly Degraded Tropical Landscape: Hong Kong, South China

“…There would have been no such barriers for forest species before forest clearance, so their absence is most likely a result of deforestation and fragmentation, although we have no direct evidence that any of them were ever present in Hong Kong. At least for Leopoldamys edwardsi, which occurs in the nearest large forest area to Hong Kong, at Ding Hu Shan, 150 km to the northwest (Liu 1982), there is evidence that it is highly susceptible to fragmentation, since it was the only species to disappear from all recent land-bridge islands in a reservoir in southern Thailand (Lynam and Billick 1999).…”

“…It is hard to generalize from such a large body of literature, and many fragmentation effects are speciesspecific, but one major conclusion is that species that can make use of matrix habitats tend to increase in abundance in small fragments, while species that cannot decline (e.g. Gascon et al 1999;Lynam and Billick 1999;Harrington et al 2001;Pardini 2004;Vargas and Simonetti 2004;Viveiros de Castro and Fernandez 2004). In the long-term, repeated cycles of fragmentation and regrowth are likely to lead to the extinction of forest-dependent species and their replacement by habitat generalists (Corlett 2000).…”

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“…More than 100 former hilltops became permanent islands in Chiew Larn reservoir and retained their original fauna of 10-12 species of small mammals. During years 5-8 postfragmentation we monitored the demographic collapse of these communities, [16][17][18] and genetic variability in commoner species whose populations were effectively isolated on some islands. 19,20 …”