Survey and Population Density of Some Rodent Species in Sahel Silem District at Assiut Governorate

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Plant Protection Research Institute, ARC, Dokki, Giza, Egypt.

Abstract

Survey and population density of rodent species at Sahel Silem District, Assiut Governorate in two different habitats; field crops and village houses, were conducted during two successive years from 2015 to 2017. The obtained results recorded, three rodent species: the fruit rat, Rattus rattus (Linnaeus), the Nile Field rat or the Nile grass, Arvicanthis niloticus (Desmart) and the wildNorwayrat, Rattus norvegicus (Berkanhout), in spring, summer, autumn and winter seasons during the experimental period. In addition, the high population density was recorded for the dominant rodent species, Rattus rattus in field crops while; low population density was recorded for, Rattus norvegicus in field crops. Moreover, Rattus norvegicus was dominant and the highest numbers in village houses. Furthermore, the results proved that the field crops were attacked by rodent species more than village houses during the experimental period.

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