Synanthropic rodent fauna of Eastern Transbaikalia in the early 21st century

The article provides information on the synanthropic rodent fauna of Eastern Transbaikalia. In 2017–2020 the city of Chita, the town of Baley and small settlements of Zabaykalsky krai were surveyed. True synanthropes: the house mouse and the brown rat are most abundant in residential landscapes. Natural populations of the house mouse are typical for coastal biotopes of the steppe zone, and the brown rat is typical for forest-steppe zone of Zabaykalsky krai. In Chita (administrative centre of Zabaykalsky krai) the share of the brown rat in rodent communities has considerably increased in recent decades. There is an extension of the brown rat’s habitat in the area of Baikal-Amur Mainline. Optional synanthropes: striped field mouse, striped dwarf hamster, Maximowicz’s vole, and narrow-headed vole are less important in residential landscapes of the region. In the beginning of the 21st century the field mouse is extending its habitat to the disjunct zone to the west of Transbaikalia: it is now common in the residential area of the town of Baley. Penetration of another optional synanthropic species recorded in the neighbouring Siberian regions – the East European vole – has not been detected.

Rodent-Borne Orthohantaviruses in Vietnam, Madagascar and Japan

Hantaviruses are harbored by multiple small mammal species in Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas. To ascertain the geographic distribution and virus-host relationships of rodent-borne hantaviruses in Japan, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Madagascar, RNAlater™-preserved lung tissues of 981 rodents representing 40 species, collected in 2011–2017, were analyzed for hantavirus RNA by RT-PCR. Our data showed Hantaan orthohantavirus Da Bie Shan strain in the Chinese white-bellied rat (Niviventer confucianus) in Vietnam, Thailand; orthohantavirus Anjo strain in the black rat (Rattus rattus) in Madagascar; and Puumala orthohantavirus Hokkaido strain in the grey-sided vole (Myodes rufocanus) in Japan. The Hokkaido strain of Puumala virus was also detected in the large Japanese field mouse (Apodemus speciosus) and small Japanese field mouse (Apodemus argenteus), with evidence of host-switching as determined by co-phylogeny mapping.

Aggregated occurrence records of the invasive alien striped field mouse (Apodemus agrarius Pall.) in the former USSR

Open access to occurrence records of the most dangerous invasive species in a standardised format have important potential applications for ecological research and management, including the assessment of invasion risks, formulation of preventative and management plans in the context of global climate and land use changes in the short and long perspective. The striped field mouse (Apodemus agrarius Pallas, 1771) is a common species in the temperate latitudes of the Palaearctic. Due to land use and global climate changes, several waves of expansion of the range of this species have been observed or inferred. By intrusion into new regions, the striped field mouse has become an alien species there. Apodemus agrarius causes significant harm to agriculture and is one of the most important pests of grain crops. In tree nurseries, A. agrarius destroys seeds of valuable tree species and gnaws at the bark of saplings of broadleaf species and berry bushes. It is one of the most epidemiologically important rodents, involved in the circulation of the causative agents of haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) and many other zoonotic infections. The foregoing allows us to classify the striped field mouse as a dangerous invasive alien species in the expanding part of the range. A lot of data accumulated for this species are of interest from both ecological and applied points of view. The accumulation and aggregation of data on the occurrence records of A. agrarius is relevant for the study of ecology, biogeography and construction of the spatial distribution and ecological niche models in the context of global climate change. We have created a dataset of 1603 occurrence records of this species, collected from 1936 to December 2020 by various zoologists, previously published or original. These records relate to a significant part of the striped field mouse’s range in Russia (1264 records) and neighbouring countries (339 records). The dataset shows the position of the northern and central parts of A. agrarius range, the disjunction of the range in Transbaikalia and isolated populations in the north of the range. The data were obtained in different formats from literature, indicating different degrees of accuracy of geographic coordinates and with several variations of the species' name. In the process of aggregating and fixing errors, we created a set of georeferenced occurrence records, adopted a controlled vocabulary, removed duplicates and standardised the format of records using unified data structure. We examined the dataset for inconsistencies with the taxonomic position of A. agrarius and removed the incorrect records. This paper presents the resulting dataset of A. agrarius occurrence records in the territory of Russia and neighbouring countries in a standardised format. This is a validated and comprehensive dataset of occurrence records of A. agrarius, including both our own observations and records from literature. This dataset is available for extension by other researchers using a standard format in accordance with Darwin Core standards. In different countries, there are a lot of occurrence records for the striped field mouse, but the overwhelming part of them is presented in separate literary sources, stored in the form of maps and in zoological collections. Prior to this project, such information was not available to a wide range of researchers and did not allow the use of these spatial data for further processing by modern methods of analysis, based on geographic information systems (GIS technologies). The created dataset combines species occurrence records of many Soviet zoologists who studied the distribution of the striped field mouse over a significant part of its recent range, in Russia and neighbouring countries (within the former USSR). The final set of records was created by combining the species occurrence records using a uniform data structure, checking geographic coordinates and removing duplicate and erroneous records. The dataset expands the available information on the spatial and temporal distribution of the dangerous invasive species in Russia and neighbouring countries of the former USSR (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan).

The roles of possible geographic barriers and geological events on the phylogeographic structure of the Eastern broad toothed field mouse (Apodemus mystacinus)

The Eastern broad toothed field mouse, Apodemus mystacinus, is a rodent species distributed in Turkey, the Middle East, and a few Aegean Islands. The aim of this study is to analyse the phylogeographic structure of A. mystacinus and possible causes of its differentiation, on the basis of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences using a large number of new samples from Turkey. In this context, partial mitochondrial sequences of cytochrome b (Cytb), control region (D-loop) and a nuclear interphotoreceptor retinoid-binding protein (IRBP) gene were used to reveal the geographical differentiation among A. mystacinus populations and the validity of its subspecies. The estimated divergence times revealed that the first separation of A. mystacinus into three distinct groups (subspecies of A. mystacinus: A. m. mystacinus, A. m. smyrnensis, and A. m. euxinus) begun 0.641 Mya. The possible physical barriers in Anatolia such as high mountains and rivers could interrupt the gene flow between A. mystacinus populations. The results of the present study indicated that A. mystacinus might have used the high rocky areas along the Anatolian Diagonal as a dispersal way. Moreover, mitochondrial data in this study suggested for the first time that A. m. rhodius is synonymous with the nominative subspecies A. m. mystacinus.