The influence of food supplementation on a coastal dune rodent community

Studies of the rodent community in regenerating coastal dune forest areas n orth of Richards Bay, South Africa, have indicated that a number of species occupy newly rehabilitating areas. Unstable environmental conditions resul t in habitat changes, rather than competitive interactions, being the major determinant of rodent community development. This led to the present study , which investigated the effects of supplementary food on rodent assemblage s. We attempted to stabilize food availability in order to elucidate some o f the mechanisms responsible for the development of the rodent community. B y only increasing an existing portion of the resource spectrum, we reduced species diversity, probably through dominance by competitive superior explo iters of the augmented resource. Thus, species diversity decreased with foo d supplementation, as a result of an increase in the abundance of Mastomys natalensis rather than because of a change in the number of spec ies or the abundance of other species.