What happened to the house mouse: Modelling the occupancy of Mus musculus in an argentine city considering its urban growth

Abstract

This work aimed to estimate occupancy probabilities of Mus musculus (house mouse) as a function of environmental (NDVI and distance to water bodies) and anthropogenic (proportion of paved streets, distances to illegal dumpsites and railways) variables and to explore the differences in occupancy according to temporal changes of urban growth. We used occupancy models to obtain predictive maps of M. musculus distribution in habitats with open spatial arrangements of the city of Río Cuarto in periods 2001-2003 and 2020, which was validated on the ground. The obtained map for the first period showed that the highest occupancy probabilities agreed with paved areas following a gradient to the outskirt of the city, where the lowest occupancy values coincided with those areas without any buildings and with high values of vegetation cover. The obtained map for 2020 conditional on the actual presence of an open spatial arrangement habitat, showed that the house mouse expanded its distribution range in the city, with low-medium probability values in zones where it was absent in the previous period. Data obtained from field validation would support the reliability of our predictive map. This work reinforces the importance of integrating spatial analysis, environmental and anthropogenic variables and occupancy data in an urban area. Mus musculus expanded its range of distribution in the city accompanying the increase in urbanization that Río Cuarto has experienced in the last 20 years. Considering the importance of M. musculus as an indicator of environmental degradation in urban areas, local authorities have now a spatially explicit tool to prioritize resources to detect vacant lots located in those areas predicted as mediumhigh occupancy probabilities and direct control policies on them.