The abundance and density, as the main criteria for determining the population size of a species, are of crucial importance in wildlife studies. We tested the relative abundance indicators of common rodent and shrew species obtained by standard trapping methods to determine their representativeness in assessing population density. Four stations with a complete capture site, a fence, and a ditch at each one were set up in different habitats in the forest-steppe zone of Primorsky Krai in 2023–2024. The most abundant species used for the analysis were Apodemus agrarius, Micromysminutus and Crocidura lasiura. We found that even methods close in trapping principle have their own specificity and cannot replace each other in monitoring studies. When comparing the abundance indicators of common species obtained by capture method using ditches and fences, the Spearman’s correlation coefficient did not reach statistically significant values. The abundance of the Crocidura lasiura in different types of habitats was more than twice as high in ditches compared to fences according to the capture data. To replace labor-intensive methods of determining the small mammal density, a recalculation was created using conversion factors. We found out that the ratio between the indicators of relative abundance and density of small mammals differs not only for different species, but also at different stages of the population dynamics of each species. Comparison of the counting data at complete capture sampling sites with those obtained using indirectly obtained conversion coefficients showed their inconsistency with the actual density parameters. However, direct conversion factors of relative abundance and density are also not suitable for accurately assessing of density of most species of rodents and shrews.
Keywords: small mammals, capture method, ditch with pitfalls, trap fences, relative abundance, density
Article published in number 2 for 2025 DOI: 10.25750/1995-4301-2025-2-190-197
ISSN 1995-4301
Select viewing options
