Abstract
Accurate detection of invasive rodents is essential to guide appropriate management responses, including effective control. Due to the arboreal behaviour of some invasive rodent species, above-ground monitoring may provide managers with a clearer picture of rodent presence. Numerous ground-based rodent monitoring tools have been tested and compared, but how these tools perform in an arboreal context is unknown. Our study sought to compare the strata-specific detection capability of three widely applied rodent monitoring tools using a nested design. Over two month-long periods, we deployed 180 monitoring stations at the ground, mid-storey and canopy across 30 sites within a National Park forest. Each monitoring station consisted of a camera trap, chew card and tracking tunnel positioned to detect rodent presence. Device agreement was high, with all devices detecting rodent presence at 50% of stations. Chew cards were the most sensitive above-ground tool, implied by positive rodent detection 90% of the time, while tracking tunnels and camera traps generated a positive detection 74% and 75% of the time respectively. Low equipment costs also made chew cards the most cost-effective method. Detection performance differed according to the strata in which the device was deployed, thus a combination of methods that includes camera traps and chew cards was most effective when implementing a three-dimensional rodent monitoring network in forests. While not all methods are equal, traditionally ground-based rodent monitoring devices can be used to effectively monitor arboreal rodent activity. We provide evidence-based guidance for invasive rodent monitoring in an arboreal context to support future invasive rodent population control or eradication programs.
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Data availability
The datasets generated and analysed during the current study are available in the FigShare repository, “Detection performance comparison dataset”, https://doi.org/10.26180/21811296.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the management team of Norfolk Island National Park for their dedicated support and knowledge throughout this project: Nigel Greenup, Joel Christian, Ken Christian and Ross Quintal. We also thank field volunteers Kathleen Garland, Nicholas Wiggins, Mark Hallam and Judith Andersen for their generous contributions. We thank Benjamin Viola for his administrative support throughout this project. All research was conducted under an approved Parks Australia Management Plan as well as Monash University Animal Ethics approval 2021-14636-59388. This research was funded by Parks Australia [grant number 281969256] under a collaborative agreement between the Director of National Parks and Monash University; A Nance was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship.
Funding
This research was funded by Parks Australia [grant number 281969256] under a collaborative agreement between the Director of National Parks and Monash University. Author A.N. was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship. The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose. All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Alexandra Nance. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Alexandra Nance and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Nance, A.H., Wilson, M., Cook, C.N. et al. Monitoring for the presence of invasive arboreal rodents: an assessment of monitoring tools across forest strata. Biol Invasions 26, 875–887 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-023-03216-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-023-03216-y