Vegetation and small mammals of a Victorian forest.

Abstract

The floristic vegetation communities and small mammal populations have been surveyed for the 1600 ha of tall open forest in Sherbrooke Forest, Victoria. This was done by intensive live trapping of a 5 ha square of forest, followed by a floristic description and analysis of the vegetation, on the trapping grid and for the forest as a whole. Of the three small mammal species trapped, Rattus fuscipes was the most numerous on the trapping grid. Its numbers, although fluctuating greatly, were generally low in gully vegetation dominated by coarse pteridophytes, and high in vegetation comprising a variety of mesophytic herbs and an abundance of seed and fleshy-fruit producing angiosperms. Two Antechinus spp. were trapped and both consistently occurred in greatest abundance in vegetation dominated by pteridophytes, particularly tree-ferns. The use of this procedure in estimating small mammal densities over large areas is discussed.