ECOLOGY OF SMALL MAMMALS IN OLOOLUA FOREST IN NAIROBI, KENYA.

Abstract

Rapid growth of Nairobi as an urban centre has had numerous negative effects on biodiversity greatly jeopardizing the future of small mammals due to habitat alteration and destruction. In this study we assessed the abundance, diversity, distribution and seasonal variation of small mammals in Oloolua forest. Four habitats were sampled for 90 days during the dry and wet seasons of the year 2017. Rodents and shrews were captured using a mixture of traps i.e. Sherman traps, museum special and victor snap traps and pitfalls. Small carnivores were sampled using tomahawk cage traps whereas bats were captured using mist nets. A total of 12,938 corrected trap nights and 2,160 net hours realised 101 rodents & shrews and 116 bats respectively belonging to orders Rodentia (43.78%); Soricomorpha (2.76%) and Chiroptera (53.46%). Diversity indices across habitats and seasons showed no significant difference. A one-way analysis of variance on the abundances across the habitats yielded F(3, 35) = 0.5209 P >0.05 indicating no significant difference in the abundance of small mammals among the habitats sampled meaning the difference in abundance numbers is mere chance. Oloolua forest is an important small mammals’ refuge within the urban city of Nairobi offering unparalleled opportunities to study the ecology of sympatric small mammal species in an urban context and therefore deserves conservation.