Abundance and Dynamics of Small Mammals and Their Predators

Dear Colleagues,

Small mammals (rodents and insectivores) represent a numerous and eclectic group of species of different phylogenetic origin that share similar biological/ecological characteristics derived from their small size. This group is considered to play a key functional role in ecosystems worldwide, providing several benefits, such as vegetation and soil regeneration (as seed dispersers and burrowers), and being at the bottom of food webs, thus playing a central role as both predators of invertebrates and prey of medium-sized carnivores and raptors. On the other hand, they frequently are regarded as pests, especially in anthropogenic ecosystems.

Indeed, small mammals show complex and interactive top-down and bottom-up regulation of numbers of other relevant components of their communities. Being short-lived, in addition to having fast generation times and demographic responses to environmental factors, small mammals are ideal subjects to study population dynamics in time and space as compared to long-lived mammal species. In the light of environmental change because of human activities, landscapes and climate are suffering from alterations producing range shifts and restructuration of small-mammal assemblages—now dominated by opportunistic species with poor conservation value and limited functions, leading to new management strategies for the conservation of ecosystems.

This Special Issue invites research papers on small-mammal breeding, abundance and dynamics based on time series recorded in either natural or human-altered landscapes at different spatial scales. Dynamics of predator–prey systems, from the point of view of small mammals playing the role of predators and/or prey, are especially welcome. Our scope also includes predator–small-mammal interactions and predators’ responses both numerically and functionally to population dynamics of small-mammal prey, as well as the role of small mammals as regulators of invertebrate pests. Manuscripts analyzing the influence of environmental change (processes of forest fragmentation, land abandonment, wildfires, successional stages, climate change, etc.) as well as the biotic/abiotic properties and functions of landscapes on population/meta-population dynamics (changes in species abundance, demography, community composition, etc.) with either theoretical or empirical perspectives are welcome.

Dr. Ignasi Torre
Dr. Linas Balčiauskas
Guest Editors

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