Origin and putative colonization routes for invasive rodent taxa in the democratic Republic of Congo

peer reviewed The threat posed by biological invasions is well established. An important consideration in preventing the spread of invasives and also subsequent introductions lies in understanding introduction pathways. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) houses a large percentage of the worl...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:African Zoology
Main Authors: Kaleme, P. K., Bates, J. M., Belesi, H. K., Bowie, R. C. K., Gambalemoke, M., Kerbis-Peterhans, J., Michaux, Johan, Mwanga, J. M., Ndara, B. R., Taylor, P. J., Van Vuuren, B. J.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Taylor & Francis 2011
Subjects:
Control region
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Mus musculus
Rattus norvegicus
Rattus rattus
Democratic Republic Congo
Kinshasa
Ville de Kinshasa
Rattus
Rodentia
Life sciences
Zoology
Sciences du vivant
Zoologie
Online Access:https://orbi.uliege.be/handle/2268/174114
https://orbi.uliege.be/bitstream/2268/174114/1/kaleme.pdf
https://doi.org/10.3377/004.046.0104
Description
Summary:peer reviewed The threat posed by biological invasions is well established. An important consideration in preventing the spread of invasives and also subsequent introductions lies in understanding introduction pathways. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) houses a large percentage of the world's biodiversity, yet no national strategy exists to deal with the growing number of invasive alien species. Amongst these are the house mouse and ship and Norwegian rats. By comparing our result to published data, we show that species were possibly introduced into the DRC via two routes. The first is via the western seaport at Kinshasa where specimens of M. m. domesticus and R. rattus on the western and northwestern side of the DRC show ties with European haplotypes. The second is via the east where specimens of R. rattus appear linked to Arab and southeast Asian haplotypes. Future work should consider more comprehensive sampling throughout the DRC to more accurately investigate the occurrence of invasive species throughout the country as well as extend sampling to other African countries.

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