The impact of the striped field mouse’s range expansion on communities of native small mammals

Understanding species expansion as an element of the dispersal process is crucial to gaining a better comprehension of the functioning of the populations and the communities. Populations of the same species that are native in one area could be considered nonindigenous, naturalised or invasive somewhere else. The striped field mouse has been expanding its range in south-western Slovakia since 2010, although the origin of the spread has still not been clarified. In light of the striped field mouse’s life history, the recent range expansion is considered to be the expansion of a native species. This study analyses the impact of the striped field mouse's expansion on the native population and small mammal communities and confronts the documented stages of striped field mouse expansion with the stages of invasion biology. Our research replicates the design and compares results from past research of small mammals prior to this expansion at the same three study areas with the same 20 study sites and control sites. Several years after expansion, the striped field mouse has a 100% frequency of occurrence in all study sites and has become the dominant species in two of the study areas. The native community is significantly affected by the striped field mouse’s increasing dominance, specifically: (i) we found a re-ordering of the species rank, mainly in areas with higher dominance, and (ii) an initial positive impact on diversity and evenness during low dominance of the striped field mouse turned markedly negative after crossing the 25% dominance threshold. Results suggested that the variation in the striped field mouse’s dominance is affected by the northern direction of its spread. Our findings show that establishment in a new area, spread and impact on the native community are stages possibly shared by both invasive and native species during their range expansion.