Threats to Mammals on Fragmented Habitats Around Asella Town, Central Ethiopia
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Hindawi Publishing Corporation International Journal of Biodiversity Volume 2014, Article ID 903898, 7 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/903898 Research Article Threats to Mammals on Fragmented Habitats around Asella Town, Central Ethiopia Mohammed Kasso and Afework Bekele Department of Zoological Sciences, Addis Ababa University, P.O. Box 1176, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Correspondence should be addressed to Mohammed Kasso; [email protected] Received 5 August 2014; Revised 16 September 2014; Accepted 30 September 2014; Published 29 October 2014 Academic Editor: Rafael Riosmena-Rodr´ıguez Copyright © 2014 M. Kasso and A. Bekele. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Assessment of the current information on the major threat to mammals in fragmented remnant montane forest of Child Care Center and School of Agriculture was conducted from March to July 2013. The prevailing threatening factors were collected by questionnaires, checklists, interview, observation, and document analysis. A total of 22 species of mammals were recorded of which six (27%) were endemic to the country and vulnerable. Mammals and their habitats were threatened by land fragmentation, hunting, habitat modification, land degradation and deforestation, lack of awareness, and finance. Although all mammals were susceptible to hunting, high rate of occurrence was recorded for Olive baboon (Papio anubis). The different infrastructure construction in both compounds is causing different impacts. As the area is rich in mammals and other species and threatened by different factors to reverse the situation, urgent conservation action is highly recommended. 1. Introduction Although the mechanism of impact on populations is poorly known, habitat fragmentation is often considered as Habitat fragmentation is splitting of natural habitats and a major threat and endangerment to biodiversity [6]. As the ecosystems into smaller, more isolated patches driven by proportion of suitable habitat decreases, small and isolated many different factors like disturbance, pollution, settlement, habitat patches appear whose patch size and degree of isola- infrastructure, and deforestation [1].Itisthemainprocess tion influence the population size of individual species3 [ ]. responsible for biodiversity loss and threat in tropical forests This leads species to depend on increasingly smaller patches leading to isolation [2]. Conversion to agricultural land use of remnant, seminatural habitat and green corridors such as results in a loss of habitat, reduction in patch size, and an hedgerows, wooded field margins, infrastructure verges, and increase in distance between patches and new habitat forma- small forest patches [7]. The impacts can also occur in a num- tion [3]. Habitat loss has pervasive and disruptive impacts on ber of ways: introduction of exotic species, invasion by the biodiversity and its magnitude of the ecological impacts competitors, nest predators, or nest parasites and the alter- can be exacerbated by habitat fragmentation [4]. ation of microclimatic conditions by disturbances like fire, Anthropogenic activities were frequently related in many damage to vegetation, off-road vehicle use, poaching, plant ways to forest fragmentation and alteration of natural collecting, and refuse dumping [8]. Crop cultivation, pasture, communities [2]. Land transformation severely affects the and human residence near the fragmented forest habitat also integrity of ecological systems through loss of native species, highly determine the species composition and abundance of invasion of exotic species, pronounced soil erosion, and mammals [2, 5]. Species composition and abundance change decreased water quality [5]. Human activities like tourism as fragmentation occurs in landscapes by losing those species practices,hunting,agriculture,andcattlerearingarealso that require large areas. In addition, the native vegetation known to affect the demography, population structure, spatial leftaftersuchmodificationsmayalsobereducedinsize range of individuals and species, and change in the commu- and disconnected from adjacent, continuous habitat. As a nity structure [2]. result, plants and animals which occur in these remnants 2 International Journal of Biodiversity The abundance and richness of mammal assemblages consid- erably differ among remnant fragments in urban and rural 510000 511000 512000 518000 513000 514000 515000 516000 517000 areas. The urban fragments seem to possess high proportion N 881000 W E of introduced rodents than rural and forest fragments isolated 880000 S by urbanization. Larger areas with good quality habitats are not sufficient to maintain native small mammal population 879000 [16]. 878000 Many habitats of mammals are undergoing degradation Ethiopia due to high human encroachment for agriculture, pasture- 877000 School of sella town A Child Care Agriculture Center land, collection of firewood and medicinal plant, settlement, 876000 Tirunesh Dibaba Athletics Academy andotherhumanactivities[17]. Even though Ethiopia pos- sesses many mammalian fauna, limited studies have been car- 875000 (km) 0 0.45 0.9 1.8 2.7 3.6 ried out in different parts of the country with focus on large 874000 intact and protected habitats [18, 19]. However, there is no sufficient study on such small fragmented habitats that could Study grids serve as population stock source with significant economical, Boundary ecological,social,andculturalvalues.Despitethis,littleatten- Asella town tion is given to conserve the biodiversity of the area and the country as a whole. Thus, the present study is aimed at gather- Figure 1: Map of the study area. ing the current information on the prevailing threatening fac- tors to mammals. The study will also be used to suggest pos- sible solutions for conservation and development of the area. will be subdivided and reduced. This excludes certain species or increases the probability of extinction [4, 5]. The rate of 2. Materials and Methods species extinction in an isolated patch is inversely related to thesizebecauseitlesslikelyprovidesfood,cover,andother 2.1. The Study Area. The study is carried out in the two remnant fragmented dry evergreen montane forest habitats resources necessary to support the native wildlife community ∘ ∘ located approximately 07 55 22 to 07 56 24 Nlatitudeand [9, 10]. ∘ ∘ It also creates discontinuities or patchiness in the dis- 39 05 41 to 39 08 36 E longitude in and around Asella tribution of critical resources for animals. Ultimately, these town.TheremnantfragmentedforestswereEthiopianOrtho- physical changes in the extent and connectivity of suitable dox Church Child and Family Affairs Organization, Debre habitat conditions affect many processes that influence the Kidus Sisay Hailemichael Memorial Child Care Center of behavior and spatial habitat use patterns and intra- and inter- Asella town, hereafter, called Child Care Center and Adama specific interactions that influence population persistence Science and Technology University, School of Agriculture, and community structure and dynamics [11]. hereafter, called School of Agriculture. The Child Care Center 2 Despite decades of research, the general importance of is of relatively small size 22.11 ha (221,100 m )whencompared patch area and isolation as predictors of species occupancy with School of Agriculture which is about 261.05 ha (2,610, 2 in fragmented tropical terrestrial systems remains unknown 540 m )(Figure 1). [2]. Furthermore, the sensitivity to patchiness and isolation These fragmented ruminant forests were protected and depends on taxonomic group, diet, specialization and fecun- modified for use of land for different purposes before long dity, and size of mammals due to their variation in their time.Thishelpedthefragmentedhabitatstoserveasbest energy requirements [12]. Although the ecological conse- representative of the surrounding area before it was defor- quences by human disturbance near development seem ested. In general, the fragmented habitats have thick mixed severe, only limited research has addressed its effect on ani- natural and plantation forest dominated by Podocarpus trees mal communities [13, 14]. Studying the socioeconomic vari- that endowed with many small and large mammals like ables directly connected to wildlife habitat is used to predict bushbuck, baboon, hyena, porcupine, rat and mice, and other theinfluenceofhumanpresenceandactivitiesonsmallmam- organisms. Currently due to the expansion of Asella town, mal communities and it can be used as a tool to evaluate human population growth, and different development and the conservation status and threat [2]. Humans greatly alter infrastructure construction, the habitat in both compounds the landscape patterns that frequently correlate with species is affected by loss of corridors and edge effect. assemblages including the amount and structure of native vegetation, the prevalence of anthropogenic edges, the degree 2.2. Methods. Data on prevailing threatening factors were of landscape connectivity, and the structure and heterogene- collected with the help of semistructured open and close- ity of modified areas [15]. ended questionnaires and checklists, interview, and direct Since the consequence of habitat fragmentation to ani- and indirect observation from March to July 2013. A pretested mals is complex, species respond differently