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Rationale

Listed as Least Concern as the Chestnut African Climbing Mouse is widespread across the eastern regions of the assessment region, occurs in multiple protected areas (including Kruger National Park), is common and sampled consistently in different vegetation types and has a documented recent range expansion in the North West Province. It exhibits a degree of habitat tolerance, and there are no known threats that could cause widespread population decline. However, the impacts of grassland loss on this species should be monitored, particularly land cover change from mining and agriculture synergising with climate change. Low numbers were recorded in the Highveld Grasslands of Gauteng and Mpumalanga provinces. This species should be reassessed following taxonomic resolution.

Regional population effects: This species is expected to disperse from Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Botswana into South Africa. This species may disperse where suitable habitat of coarse-grassed grassland is continuous.

Distribution

This species is widely, but discontinuously, distributed in low-lying savannah and grasslands (typically below 1,000 m) of southern and East Africa (Monadjem et al. 2015). Currently, it is thought to occur from Sudan and Ethiopia southwards to Kenya and Tanzania, then westwards to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Angola and Nigeria. Further south its range extends into Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, parts of Mozambique and extensively across eastern South Africa. The precise limits of its distribution are unknown, and it is perhaps more widespread than presently indicated. Further taxonomic resolution will help to delimit its distribution.

Within the assessment region, the species is confined to the eastern and northeastern parts of country, including parts of the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, and Limpopo provinces (Skinner & Chimimba 2005). Additionally, there has been a recent range expansion westwards into the North West Province, as Power (2014) confirms that specimens recently collected from wetlands in the Marico and Molopo rivers are the most westerly recorded (see Newbery 1995). In Gauteng and Mpumalanga provinces this species was recently recorded in low numbers in Rocky Highveld Grassland and Moist Degraded Grassland on Ezemvelo Nature Reserve (Gauteng) and Telperion Nature Reserve (Mpumalanga) (MacFadyen 2014).

Habitat View more ecological information

Population trend

Trend

This species is widespread across its range, but is not usually collected in large numbers. It is consistently trapped but not often. Population numbers also tend to fluctuate, with higher numbers recorded in autumn on the Highveld (MacFadyen 2014). Suitable habitat is often fragmented, and the population is concentrated towards the north and eastern parts of the country. MacFadyen (2014) estimated the population of this species in Rocky Highveld Grassland at 2 animals / ha, with a lower density of 1 animal / ha recorded in Moist Degraded Grassland. Additionally, it was trapped by Rautenbach et al. (2014) at Phinda Private Game Reserve in a variety of habitats, and by Avenant and Kuyler (2002) in a cultivated area at Maguga Dam, Swaziland. These results are an indication that this species has the ability to inhabit a range of habitat types.

Threats

Currently no major threats have been identified for this species, but grassland habitat loss from agricultural expansion (especially monocultures), forestry and mining developments and loss of habitat quality from overgrazing and incorrect fire management may also cause local declines. Climate change is also expected to reduce Afromontane grassland, further jeopardising the species similar to other Afromontane species (Taylor et al. 2016). The impact of these threats on the population remains to be quantified.

Uses and trade

There is no known subsistence or commercial use of this species.

Conservation

This species occurs in several protected areas within its range in the assessment region, including Kruger National Park (Limpopo), uMkhuze and Phinda Game Reserves (KwaZulu-Natal), Telperion Nature Reserve (Mpumalanga), and Ezemvelo Nature Reserve (Gauteng). No direct interventions are necessary but protected area expansion to incorporate grassland habitats would certainly benefit the species, specifically to create habitat linkages where connectivity between natural habitat patches has been lost. Planners should prioritise previously cultivated areas for development instead of remaining natural areas. For example, previously ploughed areas now left fallow make up 8.9% of the Grassland Biome in Mpumalanga, and these areas should be prioritised for further development (Lotter et al. 2014). Grassland restoration projects through post-mining rehabilitation programs are also likely to benefit this species. Grasslands are restored in a number of ways, most importantly, the ground should be contoured, top soil replaced, and grass seed sowed. Seeds were successfully sowed and grassland rehabilitated on old lands on Telperion Nature Reserve (D. MacFadyen unpubl. data). It is the mining and agricultural industriesâ responsibility to rehabilitate mined and ploughed areas, respectively. Additionally, land owners are responsible for managing the land and vegetation, ensuring over-utilisation of grasses is avoided.

Recommendations for land managers and practitioners:

Land owners should leave corridors of grassland between cultivated areas.
Employ correct land management practices to prevent overgrazing and indiscriminate burning.
Protected areas expansion through provincial stewardship programmes.

Research priorities:

This species complex requires an urgent taxonomic revision; the species might be split along biome boundaries.
Land cover maps and climate-based modelling must be used to project future decline in the Grassland Biome.
Quantifying habitat preferences and understanding local movements and dispersal mechanisms between habitats; quantifying the speciesâ habitat under formal protection.
Research into the contribution of this species complex to ecosystem functioning.

Encouraged citizen actions:

Report sightings on virtual museum platforms (for example, iSpot and MammalMAP), especially outside protected areas.
Report illegal mining practice.
Plant indigenous grasses in urban and peri-urban gardens.
Create corridors to offset the impacts of urbanisation and ensure movement and gene flow between populations, especially corridors of natural grassland in agricultural and mining areas.
Reduce use of insecticides and herbicides as much as possible.
Reduce over-stocking on cattle and game ranches.
Proclaim private land nature reserves/protected areas under government stewardship programmes.

References

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