Effect of grassland restoration on small mammal assemblages in Egyek-Pusztakócs (Hortobágy National Park)
Abstract
We studied small mammal assemblages on croplands, and restored and natural grasslands of the Egyek-Pusztakócs marsh system by live trapping in 12 grids of 36 traps covering 1 hectare in the spring and autumn of 2011. In the spring, we captured only 20 individuals of three species during 2160 trap-nights, while in the autumn we caught 359 specimens of 12 species with the same sampling effort. This 18-fold increase in abundance was due to the fast reproduction of these animals after a catastrophic collapse of populations in the extreme wet 2010. Neither habitat type nor time since grassland restoration affected abundance or species richness, indicating that small mammals colonised restored grasslands to the same extent as croplands and natural grasslands during their dispersion from overwinter refugia. Grassland management affected the abundance of small mammals significantly because more intensive management resulted lower vegetation height. We captured the most specimens in undisturbed natural grasslands where vegetation cover was high. Our results suggest that grassland restoration offers suitable habitats for small mammals but that time since restoration is not important because large between-year fluctuations in small mammal populations override the potential benefits of grassland restoration. Further testing is required to determine whether restored grasslands offer higher chances of survival for small mammals than croplands do which are ploughed several times a year.
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