The effects of wild ungulates on small mammals: a systematic review and meta‐analysis

Wild ungulates are increasing in several regions of the world, recolonizing the empty niche left by previous livestock systems. Due to their important role as ecosystem engineers, wild ungulates can modify and change vegetation structure, as well as modulate soil ecological processes, affecting the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Mammal review 2024-04, Vol.54 (2), p.121-132
Main Authors: Afonso, Beatriz C., Rosalino, Luís Miguel, Henriques, Jorge, Tinoco Torres, Rita, Wauters, Jella, Carvalho, João
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abundance
Body mass
conservation
Environmental restoration
Food chains
Food webs
Foraging behavior
Guilds
herbivores
hierarchical meta‐analysis
Livestock
Mammals
Meta-analysis
Small mammals
systematic review
Trophic levels
Ungulates
Vegetation
wildlife management
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Summary:Wild ungulates are increasing in several regions of the world, recolonizing the empty niche left by previous livestock systems. Due to their important role as ecosystem engineers, wild ungulates can modify and change vegetation structure, as well as modulate soil ecological processes, affecting the remaining components of communities and posing new management challenges. Several studies have evaluated the effects of wild ungulates on other guilds, but the results are taxonomically biased. Thus, our goal is to synthesise the overall effects of wild ungulates on smaller mammals on a broad scale. Due to the complexity of assessing these impacts throughout the ecological network, we focused on mammals since they occupy different trophic levels and are key taxa in food webs. We conducted a review of the documented effects of wild ungulates on the guild's abundance of mammals with less than 10 kg, which revealed a gap in the literature regarding how higher trophic levels respond to wild ungulate disturbances. Using a hierarchical meta‐analytic approach, we assessed, on a subset of articles, whether the presence of wild ungulates affects the guild of small mammals and whether these effects were associated with biome, wild ungulates' body mass and foraging strategy, and small mammals' body mass. A quantitative meta‐analysis was possible only for small mammals (Rodentia/Soricomorpha/Macroscelidea
ISSN:0305-1838
1365-2907
DOI:10.1111/mam.12331