Browsing RESEARCH: Taylor, P by Author "Taylor, P.J."
Now showing items 1-20 of 36
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Afromontane small mammals do not follow the hump-shaped rule: altitudinal variation in the Soutpansberg Mountains, South Africa
Taylor, P.J.; Munyai, A.; Gaigher, I.; Baxter, R. (Cambridge University Press, 2015)Altitudinal transects of biodiversity are important to understanding macro-ecological patterns. Hump-shaped altitudinal profiles in species richness are a common pattern in terrestrial small-mammal communities studied previously ... -
Animal taxa contrast in their scale-dependent responses to land use change in rural Africa
Foord, S.H.; Swanepoel, L.H.; Evans, S.W.; Schoeman, C.S.; Erasmus, B.F.N.; Schoeman, M.C.; Keith, M.; Smith, A.; Mauda, E.V.; Maree, N.; Nembudani, N.; Dippenaar-Schoeman, A.S.; Munyai, T.C.; Taylor, P.J. (Public Library of Science, 2018)Human-dominated landscapes comprise the bulk of the world's terrestrial surface and Africa is predicted to experience the largest relative increase over the next century. A multi-scale approach is required to identify ... -
Are avian predators effective biological control agents for rodent pest management in agricultural systems?
Labuschagne, L.; Swanepoel, L.H.; Taylor, P.J.; Belmain, S.R.; Keith, M. (Elsevier Inc., 2016)Worldwide rodent pests are of significant economic and health importance. Controlling rodent pests will, therefore, not only benefit food security but also human and animal health. While rodent pests are most often ... -
Associated tympanic bullar and cochlear hypertrophy define adaptations to true deserts in African gerbils and laminate-toothed rats (Muridae: Gerbillinae and Murinae)
Nengovhela, A.; Braga, J.; Denys, C.; de Beer, F.; Tenailleau, C.; Taylor, P.J. (Anatomical Society, 2019)Hearing capabilities in desert rodents such as gerbils and heteromyids have been inferred from both anatomical and ecological aspects and tested with experiments and theoretical models. However, very few studies have focused ... -
Bat species richness and community composition along a mega-transect in the Okavango River Basin
Weier, S.M.; Keith, M.; Neef, G.G.; Parker, D.M.; Taylor, P.J. (2020)The Okavango River Basin is a hotspot of bat diversity that requires urgent and adequate protection. To advise future conservation strategies, we investigated the relative importance of a range of potential environmental ... -
Bats in the anthropogenic matrix: Challenges and opportunities for the conservation of chiroptera and their ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes
Williams-Guillen, K.; Olimpi, E.; Maas, B.; Taylor, P.J.; Arlettaz, R. (Springer, 2016)Intensification in land-use and farming practices has had largely negative effects on bats, leading to population declines and concomitant losses of ecosystem services. Current trends in land-use change suggest that ... -
Biomes, geology and past climate drive speciation of laminate-toothed rats on South African mountains (Murinae: Otomys)
Taylor, P.J.; Kearney, T.; Dalton, D.L.; Chakona, G.; Kelly, C.M.R.; Barker, N.P. (2020)Mitochondrial DNA sequences (1137 bp) of the cytochrome b gene and craniodental and craniometric data were used to investigate the evolutionary relationships of six putative rodent taxa of Otomys (family Muridae: subfamily ... -
Bird and bat predation services in tropical forests and agroforestry landscapes
Maas, B.; Karp, D.S.; Bumrungsri, S.; Darras, K.; Gonthier, D.; Huang, J.C.C.; Lindell, C.A.; Maine, J.J.; Mestre, L.; Michel, N.L.; Morrison, E.B.; Perfecto, I.; Philpott, S.M.; Sekercioglu, C.H.; Silva, R.M.; Taylor, P.J.; Tscharntke, T.; Van Bael, S.A.; Whelan, C.J.; Williams-Guillen, K. (Cambridge Philosophical Society, 2016)Understanding distribution patterns and multitrophic interactions is critical for managing bat- and bird-mediated ecosystem services such as the suppression of pest and non-pest arthropods. Despite the ecological and ... -
Changes of bat species composition over altitudinal gradients on northern and southern aspects of the Soutpansberg mountain range, South Africa
Weier, S.M.; Linden, V.M.G.; Gaigher, I.; White, P.J.C.; Taylor, P.J. (De Gruyter, 2017)In order to gain insight into the pattern of bat species composition over altitude and the environmental variables driving the observed pattern, we compared data from moist southern and drier northern aspects of the ... -
Citizen science confirms the rarity of fruit bat pollination of baobab (Adansonia digitata) flowers in southern Africa
Taylor, P.J.; Vise, C.; Krishnamoorthy, M.A.; Kingston, T.; Venter, S. (2020)The iconic African baobab tree (Adansonia digitata) has “chiropterophilous” flowers that are adapted for pollination by fruit bats. Although bat pollination of baobabs has been documented in east and west Africa, it has ... -
Comparative assessment on rodent impacts and cultural perceptions of ecologically based rodent management in 3 Afro-Malagasy farming regions
Constant, N.L.; Swanepoel, L.H.; Williams, S.T.; Soarimalala, V.; Goodman, S.M.; Massawe, A.T.; Mulungu, L.S.; Makundi, R.H.; Mdangi, M.E.; Taylor, P.J.; Belmain, S.R. (2020)Rodents generate negative consequences for smallholder farmers in Africa that directly impact household and livestock damage, food security, and public health. Ecologically Based Rodent Management (EBRM) seeks sustainable ... -
CORRIGENDUM: Integrative taxonomy resolves three new cryptic species of small southern African horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus)
Taylor, P.J.; MacDonald, A.; Goodman, S.M.; Kearney, T.; Cotterill, F.P.D.; Stoffberg, S.; Monadjem, A.; Schoeman, M.C.; Guyton, J.; Naskrecki, P.; Engelbrecht, A.; Richards, L.R. (2019) -
Cryptic speciation in the southern African vlei rat Otomys irroratus complex: evidence derived from mitochondrial cyt b and niche modelling
Engelbrecht, A.; Taylor, P.J.; Daniels, S.R.; Rambau, R.V. (The Linnean Society of London, 2011)The vlei rat Otomys irroratus has a wide distribution in southern Africa with several datasets indicating the presence of two putative species (O. irroratus and O. auratus). In the present study we use mitochrondrial cyt ... -
Diversity of bats in the Soutpansberg and Blouberg Mountains of northern South Africa: complementarity of acoustic and non-acoustic survey methods
Taylor, P.J.; Sowler, S.; Schoeman, M.C.; Monadjem, A. (Southern African Wildlife Management Association, 2013-04)We surveyed bats at 30 localities in the Soutpansberg and Blouberg Mountains within the newly proclaimed Vhembe Biosphere Reserve (VBR) of northern South Africa, based on ANABAT acoustic recordings (63 nights) conducted ... -
Diversity of haemoprotozoan parasites infecting the wildlife of South Africa
Harris, D.J.; Halajian, A.; Santos, J.L.; Swanepoel, L.H.; Taylor, P.J.; Xavier, R. (Creative Commons Attribution License, 2018)Tissue samples from wildlife from South Africa were opportunistically collected and screened for haemoprotozoan parasites using nonspecific PCR primers. Samples of 127 individuals were tested, comprising over 50 different ... -
Ecological correlates of small mammal assemblage structure at different spatial scales in the savannah biome of South Africa
Delcros, G.; Taylor, P.J.; Schoeman, M.C. (De Gruyter, 2015)We sampled the seasonal diversity of rodents and shrews in two neighboring game reserves in the savannah biome and assessed the influence of competition and abiotic processes on species composition patterns at habitat ... -
Economic value of bat predation services – A review and new estimates from macadamia orchards
Taylor, P.J.; Grass, I.; Alberts, A.J.; Joubert, E.; Tscharntke, T. (Elsevier B.V., 2018)The economic value of natural regulation of agricultural pests by bats has been estimated both by avoided cost models and by experimental predator-exclusion approaches. We review published studies globally from both ... -
Ecosystem services and disservices by birds, bats and monkeys change with macadamia landscape heterogeneity
Linden, V.M.G.; Grass, I.; Joubert, E.; Tscharntke, T.; Weier, S.M.; Taylor, P.J. (Wiley, 2019)The relative importance of ecosystem services and disservices can change with landscape structure in a poorly understood way. We compare the impact of biocontrol, provided by bats and birds, with that of crop raiding by ... -
Increased geographic sampling reveals considerable new genetic diversity in the morphologically conservative African Pygmy Mice (Genus Mus; Subgenus Nannomys)
Lamb, J.; Downs, S.; Eiseb, S.; Taylor, P.J. (Elsevier GmbH, 2014-01)African endemic pygmy mice (Genus Mus; sub-genus Nannomys) have considerable economic and public health significance, and some species exhibit novel sex determination systems, making accurate knowledge of their phylogenetics ... -
Insect pest consumption by bats in macadamia orchards established by molecular diet analyses
Weier, S.M.; Moodley, Y.; Fraser, M.F.; Linden, V.M.G.; Grass, I.; Tscharntke, T.; Taylor, P.J. (2019)The diet of insectivorous bat species is difficult to study and the least invasive tool to gain information on these predators’ foraging preferences is the study of their faecal pellets. The aim of this study was to determine ...