N. L. Avenant

National Museum, Bloemfontein · Mammalogy

The monophyletic Afro-Palaearctic clade of the horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus) comprises several species groups whose representatives can be morphologically similar to each other across groups. The only Rhinolophus species that occurs in Lesotho was traditionally attributed to the broadly distributed African desert- and savanna-dwelling bat, Rhinoloph...

Understanding the proximate mechanisms of organisms’ adaptations to the environment is a classical problem in evolutionary ecology. In the context of climate change, inducing increased aridity and disruption of seasonality, it is crucial to identify the potential for species responses. Here, the physiological response to food and water limitation d...

Sub-Saharan Africa is under-represented in global biodiversity datasets, particularly regarding the impact of land use on species’ population abundances. Drawing on recent advances in expert elicitation to ensure data consistency, 200 experts were convened using a modified-Delphi process to estimate ‘intactness scores’: the remaining proportion of...

In mammals, myrmecophagy (ant and termite consumption) represents a striking example of dietary convergence. This trait evolved independently at least five times in placentals with myrmecophagous species comprising aardvarks, anteaters, some armadillos, pangolins, and aardwolves. The gut microbiome plays an important role in dietary adaptation, and...

In mammals, myrmecophagy (ant and termite consumption) represents a striking example of dietary convergence. This trait evolved independently at least five times in placentals with myrmecophagous species comprising aardvarks, anteaters, some armadillos, pangolins, and aardwolves. The gut microbiome plays an important role in dietary adaptation, and...

Abstract Predation losses reported by producers and claims by livestock industries that predation has severe impacts on the livestock trade are often cast in doubt. Here, the effects of predation on the reproduction and production of five Merino flocks and a Dorper flock, on a strictly monitored government entity (the Glen Agricultural Institute)...

Introduction for the Indago Special Issue on Mesocarnivore predation in South Africa - meeting the challenges to food security and biodiversity

In a context of ongoing biodiversity erosion, obtaining genomic resources from wildlife is essential for conservation. The thousands of yearly mammalian roadkill provide a useful source material for genomic surveys. To illustrate the potential of this underexploited resource, we used roadkill samples to study the genomic diversity of the bat-eared...

In a context of ongoing biodiversity erosion, obtaining genomic resources from wildlife is becoming essential for conservation. The thousands of yearly mammalian roadkill could potentially provide a useful source material for genomic surveys. To illustrate the potential of this underexploited resource, we used roadkill samples to sequence reference...

During the last two decades, genotyping of African rodents has revealed important hidden diversity within morphologically cryptic genera, such as Rhabdomys. Although the distribution of Rhabdomys is known historically, its diversity has been revealed only recently, and information about the distribution range of its constituent taxa is limited. The...

South Africa has approximately 8,000 commercial small livestock farms and 5,800 communal/subsistence farmers throughout the country. Reported rates of small livestock loss to predation range from 3-13% and 0.5-19% from communal farming areas. A range of predators exist on the African continent, but in southern Africa major livestock losses are prim...

South Africa has approximately 8,000 commercial small livestock farms and 5,800 communal/subsistence farmers throughout the country. Reported rates of small livestock loss to predation range from 3-13% and 0.5-19% from communal farming areas. A range of predators exist on the African continent, but in southern Africa major livestock losses are prim...

South Africa has approximately 8,000 commercial sheep farms and 5,800 communal sheep farmers throughout the country. Reported rates of small stock loss to predation range from 3-13% and 0.5-19% from communal farming areas. A range of predators exist on the African continent, but in southern Africa major livestock losses are primarily due to black-b...

Till 2003 Rhabdomys (the four striped mouse was considered a single species with impressive ecological and behavioral variations. We have compiled information on social behavior/organisation of the african striped mouse (Rhabdomys) from studies published before or not including information on known species diversity within the genus . Whenever poss...

The establishment of the game ranching industry in South Africa has resulted in the conversion of 20 million hectares of marginal agricultural land to an economically viable and conservation oriented industry. The single biggest driving factor in the growth of the game ranching industry in South Africa was the promulgation of the Game Theft Act 105...

The taxonomic identification of mammalian fauna within fossil assemblages is a well-established component of paleoenvironmental reconstructions. However, many fragmentary specimens recovered from fossil sites are often disregarded as they can be difficult to identify with the precision required for taxonomic methods. For this reason, the large numb...

Classification of validation specimens using our QDA model. Misclassifications are in bold. See text for explanation of dietary categories. (DOCX)

Blomberg’s K for all measures. Values > 1 suggest that phylogeny is driving the similarities between closely related species. Only values < 1 were used in our analysis. (DOCX)

Dietary categorizations and incisor measurements (mm) of rodent species sampled (OA measured in degrees). See text for explanation of dietary categories. (DOCX)

The causes of human-predator conflict (HPC) are typically viewed from an anthropocentric perspective (see Redpath et al., 2013) and are consequently translated into costs incurred by humans through various animal behaviours (Aust, Boyle, Ferguson & Coulson, 2009; Barua, Bhagwat & Jadvav, 2013). Instances of HPC may originate where predators prey on...

Globally, several carnivore species have been implicated as livestock predators, these ranging in body size from the mongoose (Herpestidae) (e.g. Minnie, 2009) to the tiger Panthera tigris (Gusset, Swarner, Mponwane, Keletile & McNutt, 2009; Van der Merwe, Avenant & Lues, 2009a) and bears (e.g. Li, Buzzard, Chen & Jiang, 2013). However, medium-size...

Predators have considerable impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity, with many recent studies highlighting their strong top-down effects that influence ecosystem structure and function. The majority of these insights come from studies on a handful of large charismatic predators (i.e. lions Panthera leo: referred to as apex predators when these large...

Nest‐site selection is an important component of species socio‐ecology, being a crucial factor in establishment of group living. Consequently, nest‐site characteristics together with space‐use proxies may reveal the social organization of species, which is critical when direct observation of social interactions is hindered in nature. Importantly, n...

The taxonomic identification of mammalian fauna within fossil assemblages is a well-established component of paleoenvironmental reconstructions. However, many fragmentary specimens recovered from fossil sites are often disregarded as they can be difficult to identify with the precision required for taxonomic methods. For this reason, the large numb...

Predator-prey size relationships are among the most important patterns underlying the structure and function of ecological communities. Indeed, these relationships have already been shown to be important for understanding patterns of macroevolution and differential extinction in the terrestrial vertebrate fossil record. Stable isotope analysis (SIA...

Recent studies increasingly note the effect of captivity or the built environment on the microbiome of humans and other animals. As symbiotic microbes are essential to many aspects of biology (e.g., digestive and immune functions), it is important to understand how lifestyle differences can impact the microbiome, and, consequently, the health of ho...

Carbon isotope analyses of tooth enamel have been widely employed by paleoanthropologists to understand past habitats. Most such studies use large- to medium-bodied mammals and exclude small taxa. However, analysis of fossil small mammals holds promise for resolving questions about past environments because these animals are frequently common in th...

Small mammal communities are potential indicators of habitat integrity in southern African grassland ecosystems. As such, the assessment of small mammal diversity and community structure in rehabilitated areas could allow judgments to be made regarding the success of implemented eradication programs. In this study evidence in support of their statu...

Caracals are widespread within the assessment region. They are considered highly adaptable and, within their distribution area, are found in virtually all habitats except the driest part of the Namib. They also tolerate high levels of human activity, and persist in most small stock areas in southern Africa, despite continuously high levels of perse...

The Black-backed Jackal is endemic to sub-Saharan Africa and is widespread. It is considered a generalist canid with an opportunistic lifestyle and occupies most habitats within the assessment region. Black-backed Jackals are the dominant predators of livestock in the assessment region and are thus widely persecuted in an attempt to reduce populati...

Within the assessment region there is no reason to change the status of this species from Least Concern. The Yellow Mongoose is relatively widespread, common and resilient, adaptable to change (whether anthropogenic or not), and is not facing any immediate threats to its distribution or population. Its distribution in Swaziland and Lesotho needs to...

The Cape Grey Mongoose is listed as Least Concern because it is common and adaptable, with a catholic diet, there are no major threats, and it is present in a number of protected areas in its range.

At Namibia’s two major airports, Hosea Kutako International and Eros (domestic), 117 bird strike collision incidents were recorded between 2006 and 2010. A risk assessment, which included a proposed risk weighting methodology, was conducted at Hosea Kutako and Eros airports, which estimated the probability of an accident/collision as well as the co...

Abstract Most species in the three highly speciose families of the mouse-related clade of rodents, the Muridae, Cricetidae, and Nesomyidae (superfamily Muroidea), have a highly complex sperm head in which there is an apical hook but there are few data available for the other related families of these rodents. In the current study, using light and...

Dental microwear textures have proven to be a valuable tool for reconstructing the diets of a wide assortment of fossil vertebrates. Nevertheless, some studies have recently questioned the efficacy of this approach, suggesting that aspects of habitat unrelated to food preference, especially environmental grit load, might have a confounding effect o...

Red list status of caracal in South Africa, prior to 2016

Understanding ecosystems within and around airports can help to determine the causes and possible mitigation measures for collisions between aircraft and wildlife. Small mammal communities are an important component of the semi-arid savanna ecosystems of Namibia, its productivity and its ecosystem integrity. They are also a major direct attractant...

Black-backed jackals, Canis mesomelas, and caracals, Caracal caracal, are meso-carnivores impacting the livestock and game farming (wildlife ranching) industries in southern Africa. Many efforts to manage the impact of these predators are unsuccessful and no meaningful, or effective, long-term management programme has been formulated over any large...

Species’ partitioning of resources remains one of the most integral components for understanding community assembly. Analysis of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes in animal tissues has the potential to help resolve patterns of partitioning because these proxies represent the individual’s diet and trophic niche, respectively. Using free-ranging ro...

Coexistence often involves niche differentiation either as the result of environmental divergence, or in response to competition. Disentangling the causes of such divergence requires that environmental variation across space is taken into account, which is rarely done in empirical studies. We address the role of environmental variation versus compe...

Most species in the three highly speciose families of the mouse-related clade of rodents, the Muridae, Cricetidae, and Nesomyidae (superfamily Muroidea), have a highly complex sperm head in which there is an apical hook but there are few data available for the other related families of these rodents. In the current study, using light and electron m...

The medically important rodent species Mastomys natalensis and Mastomys coucha have identical macro-external morphology. Earlier provisional studies showed that the two species occur sympatrically in some areas, but their respective distribution ranges remain uncertain. Considering that M. natalensis and M. coucha are reservoirs of important diseas...

The success of livestock guarding dogs (LGDs) in mitigating farmer–predator conflict relies on the perceptions of farmers that use them. Purebred LGDs are provided to Namibian farmers by the Cheetah Conservation Fund as a farmer–predator conflict mitigation measure.We examined the perceptions of farmers using 164 of these LGDs by analyzing data col...

An analysis, the first of its kind in Namibia, was conducted on five years' (2006–2010) Aircraft-wildlife collision (AWC) records from two Namibian airports. These records were compared to AWC reports of three Namibian airlines. Trends in annual and seasonal occurrence of AWCs and species responsible for collisions were investigated. A total of 55...

Nearly half of South Africa’s rivers is temporary – a function of the semi-arid/arid climate prevailing over much of the region. Temporary rivers are distinguished by highly variable and unpredictable hydrological regimes, large disturbances and the loss of surface water connectivity - confining surface water to isolated pools. Instream water requi...

Prior to 1990, the four provincial governments of South Africa had a variety of programs in place to manage predation by black-backed jackals and caracals through lethal and nonlethal manage-ment in close cooperation with livestock farmers. During the 1990s the official programmes were phased out due to a multitude of factors including lower predat...

Preliminray data on four radio-collared Eastern Rock Sengis (Elephantulus myurus) is presented. Animals were tracked for two week on a 1500 ha farm 20 km north of Bethulie in the Southertn Free state South Africs. Home range sizes were 0.66 - 3.96 ha.

The relative population numbers of rodents were studied in nine habitats in and outside the N'washitshumbe enclosure site, Kruger National Park, before and after burning the firebreaks that surround the enclosure. Trap success was exceptionally high, and the field work is suspected to have coincided with a Mastomys population explosion. This genus...

The relative population numbers of rodents were studied in nine habitats in and outside the N’washitshumbe enclosure site, Kruger National Park, before and after burning the firebreaks that surround the enclosure. Trap success was exceptionally high, and the field work is suspected to have coincided with a Mastomys population explosion. This genus...

Context: The expansive grassland biome is one of the most extensively transformed in South Africa, yet no strategy for monitoring its integrity is in place. A grassland health program, incorporating different ecosystem levels, was recently initiated. The suitability of three taxonomic groups as indicators has been tested so far: vegetation (by calc...

Fire is a natural disturbance factor in southern African grasslands, and has become an important management tool for conservation of these habitats. Information on the impact of fire on any aspect of biodiversity will assist land man-agers to make more informed decisions on a fire regime that will conserve biodiversity in these grasslands. This is...