Urban rodents of the city of Diamante, Entre Ríos, Argentina

MAROLI, MALENA; GÓMEZ VILLAFAÑE, ISABEL ELISA

Mastozoología Neotropical

SAREM

Lugar: Mendoza; Año: 2021 vol. 28 p. 1 - 7

Some native cricetid rodents are well adapted to modied environments; therefore, they couldinhabit periurban or even urban environments. The city of Diamante is a small riverside city immersed ina matrix of wetland and croplands which are inhabited by cricetid rodents. This city could oer availablehabitats to island rodents principally during extreme ood events. The objective of this study was to determinethe composition of the rodent assemblage in this small riverside city of Diamante, Entre Ríos, Argentina, notstudied so far, after an exceptional magnitude ood mediated by an ENSO-El Niño event. Small rodents werelive-trapped in autumn and spring 2016 in 127 sampling units (houses and vacant lots). The relationshipamong rodent abundance and the minimal distance to the Paraná river and to boundaries of the city, and thepresence of dogs, cats, chickens and litter were explored by means of Generalized Linear Models.Mus musculusandRattus rattuswere captured in the 18.7% and 1.9% of the sampling units, respectively, whileR. norvegicusandOxymycterus rufuswere found in the 0.9% of these. Mus musculusabundance was not associated withits presence in houses or vacant lots or with any other explanatory variables. This study showed that thisriverside city does not harbor populations of native rodents, not even in extreme ooding periods.