Abundance and Distribution of Small Mammals in Chitwan National Park, Nepal

Abstract

It has been realized that the role of small mammals in maintaining ecological phenomenon is relatively higher though not much attention has been paid for the study of small mammals.Abundance and distribution pattern of small mammals (excluding bat) in riverine and sal forestof Chitwan National Park(CNP)during December 2011 and May of 2012was studied.The main objective of this study was to assess the abundance and distribution of small mammals in CNP. Three different trapping methods (Elliot, Pitfall and Camera) as well as direct observation methods were used in 3 plots of riverine and sal forest habitat type.From a total survey effort of 1080 trap nights, 14 species of small mammals belonging to 3 orders and 6 families were recorded.The abundance of small mammals was found higher in riverineforest than in sal forest.Similarly, the distribution pattern was clumped in studied areas of CNP. The Shannon Weiner diversity index suggested high small mammal diversity i.e. 0.70. Kruskal Wallis test and Paired Sample Wilcox test was used to find the significant difference in trapping efficiency of different traps and occurrence of small mammals between two habitats respectively. There was no significant difference in the trapping efficiency of different three types of traps (χ2=3.258, df =2, P>0.05,α=0.05). All the traps trapped more orless same number of species in total.There was no significant difference in occurrence of small mammals between two habitats(χ2=0.18, df=1, P>0.05,α=0.05).