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Revista de Biología Tropical

On-line version ISSN 0034-7744Print version ISSN 0034-7744

Abstract

BARRIGA-CARBAJAL, María-Lourdes; VARGAS-SANDOVAL, Margarita  and  MENDOZA, Eduardo. Deforestation increases the abundance of rodents and their ectoparasites in the Lacandon forest, Southern Mexico. Rev. biol. trop [online]. 2023, vol.71, n.1, e31785. ISSN 0034-7744.  http://dx.doi.org/10.15517/rev.biol.trop..v71i1.31785.

Introduction:

Tropical forests provide important ecosystem services, including disease control. However, few studies have focused on how deforestation affects species more suitable to be zoonotic vectors.

Objective:

To evaluate how deforestation affects the abundance and species richness of rodents and their associated ectoparasites in a tropical ecosystem.

Methods:

We captured rodents in 6 landscape units, 1 km² each, with 0.7; 5; 40; 46; 78 and 95 % tree cover, in Marques de Comillas, Chiapas, Southern Mexico. In each unit we set 90 Sherman traps that were active 24 hours for 7 days during two sampling seasons (October 2019, and September 2020). We manually extracted ectoparasites from all captured rodents.

Results:

We captured 70 rodents of five species: Sigmodon toltecus, Heteromys desmarestianus, Ototylomys phyllotis, Peromyscus mexicanus, and Oryzomys couesi. Rodent abundance increased with forest loss (R²= 0.706, P= 0.022). The greatest richness of rodent species occurred in sites with intermediate forest cover (40 and 78 %). The most abundant species were: S. toltecus (N= 45) followed by O. couesi (N= 9), these species dominated in sites with less forest cover. We recorded a total of 23 ectoparasite species, three of them known to be zoonotic vectors: Amblyomma sp., Ornithonyssus bacoti, and Androlaelaps fahrenholzi.

Conclusions:

The ongoing loss of forests promotes the proliferation of zoonotic disease vectors in this tropical ecosystem, which can potentially increase the frequency of affectation among the local population.

Keywords : deforestation; tropical forest; zoonoses; mites; reservoirs; vectors..

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