Life on high: the diversity of small mammals at high altitude in South Africa

Abstract

The Great Escarpment is the major mountain system in South Africa, yet very few biological surveys have been conducted outside of the well-known Drakensberg section. This is surprising given the important role that mountains play in local and global biodiversity patterns. In this study, small mammal diversity and community composition were estimated at three high altitude ([1,700 m) sites within the Sneeuberg Mountain Complex (SMC) of the Great Escarpment, South Africa from June 2009 to May 2010. The influences of selected environmental variables on diversity were also tested. Of 423 livecaptures, a total of 292 unique individuals of 12 small mammal species (one shrew, one elephant shrew and 10 rodents) were identified during 5,280 trap nights. No single environmental variable could account for the variation observed in diversity measurements but vegetation height appeared to be the most important factor to influence the number of individuals captured. It is hypothesised that the high species richness and diversity of small mammals observed in the SMC compared to other parts of the Great Escarpment is due to the SMC being located in a transition zone of the Grassland and Nama-Karoo biomes. Our results suggest that the SMC could be important in conserving small mammal species from western and eastern assemblages across South Africa.

Life on the rocks: Multilocus phylogeography of rock hyrax (Procavia capensis) from southern Africa

“…Whereas rocky habitats may act as barriers to gene flow in some species (Körner, 2004;Kok et al, 2012), for others they represent areas of long term stability (Kingdon, 1990), with low "change velocity" (Smethurst, 2000;Sandel et al, 2011). Environmental heterogeneity in mountains and other rocky areas provide micro-habitats with lesser extremes of temperature and humidity than the surrounds and therefore offer a relatively stable food supply and a variety of shelters (Spehn et al, 2011;Kingdon et al, 2013).…”

Habitat associations of small mammals in the foothills of the Drakensberg Mountains, South Africa

“…The Soutpansberg Mountains, representing the northern end of the South African escarpment, also reported 12 species of small mammals (Taylor et al 2015). The Sneeuberg study highlighted the importance of the mountain ranges along the South African escarpment and urged further research into the small mammal communities in this region (Kok et al 2012).…”

“…A total of nine species of terrestrial small mammals have been recorded from the Drakensberg range within the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa (Rowe- Rowe and Lowry 1982, Rowe-Rowe and Meester 1982, Bowland and Perrin 1993. A recent study from the Sneeuberg range, to the south of the Drakensberg range but on the same South African escarpment, recorded 12 species of terrestrial small mammals (Kok et al 2012). The Soutpansberg Mountains, representing the northern end of the South African escarpment, also reported 12 species of small mammals (Taylor et al 2015).…”

“…Mountain ranges are important for harboring diverse and endemic components of biodiversity (Kok et al 2012) and for the ecosystem services that they provide (Briner et al 2013). This is true of the Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa, which exhibit high endemism of both plants and animals (Clark et al 2009(Clark et al , 2011.…”

“…This is true of the Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa, which exhibit high endemism of both plants and animals (Clark et al 2009(Clark et al , 2011. However, this region has received only sporadic attention from small mammal biologists (Taylor 1998, Kok et al 2012.…”