Small mammal diversity across different habitat types in an Upper Guinean Forest National Park

Abstract

Baseline information on species diversity is lacking in many parts of the world. To address this gap, we conducted the first assessment of small mammal diversity in the Cantanhez National Park, Guinea-Bissau, West Africa. We used live- and pitfall-trapping to sample small mammals and identified them molecularly. We recorded 183 individuals from 11 species (eight rodents and three shrews). Half of the captures were made up of the forest soft-furred mouse Praomys rostratus (48.1%), followed by the multimammate mouses Mastomys huberti (18.0%) and Mastomys erythroleucus (7.7%). Our surveys extended the geographic distribution of Matthey's mouse, Mus mattheyi, by 250 km into Guinea-Bissau.