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Myocastor coypus (coypu or nutria) is considered one of the 100 worst invasive species in the world due to its risk to local wildlife, such as waterfowl, zoonotic risks, and environmental damage, such as riverbank erosion, arising from its habit of constructing burrows along the edge of water bodies. The presence of M. coypus is already known locally in the municipality of Londrina based on records at Igapó Lake. This paper presents the first record of M. coypus in Arthur Thomas Municipal Park, a Conservation Unit of Integral Protection located in the urban area of Londrina. The records were obtained through direct observation of one live individual and one carcass during campaigns to monitor medium and large mammals. Subsequently, ten records were obtained using camera traps, of unknown gender, located near waterbodies. We emphasize the need for continuous fauna monitoring in conservation units to detect and verify potential increases in invasive alien species populations that can result in environmental damage.

A espécie Myocastor coypus (ratão-do-banhado) é considerada uma das 100 piores espécies invasoras do mundo por representar risco para a fauna local, como aves aquáticas, e risco de zoonoses, além de causar danos ambientais, como desbarrancamento de encostas de rios, devido ao seu hábito de construção de tocas nas margens de corpos d'água. A presença de M. coypus já é conhecida localmente no município de Londrina a partir de registros no Lago Igapó. Assim, este estudo apresenta o primeiro registro de M. coypus no Parque Municipal Arthur Thomas, uma Unidade de Conservação de Proteção Integral localizada na zona urbana de Londrina. Os registros foram obtidos através da observação direta de um indivíduo vivo e uma carcaça durante campanhas de monitoramento de mamíferos de médio e grande porte. Posteriormente foram obtidos dez registros por armadilha fotográfica de indivíduos de sexo desconhecido, próximos a corpos d'água. Enfatiza-se a necessidade do monitoramento contínuo da fauna em áreas de conservação para a detecção do potencial aumento na população de espécies exóticas e invasoras que podem causar severos danos ambientais.

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Environmental filtering is deemed to play a predominant role in regulating the abundance and distribution of animals during the urbanization process. However, the current knowledge about the effects of urbanization on the population densities of terrestrial mammals is limited. In this study, we compared two invasive mammals (dogs Canis lupus familiaris and cats Felis silvestris) and three indigenous mammals (Siberian weasels Mustela sibirica, Amur hedgehogs Erinaceus amurensis, and Tolai hares Lepus tolai) in response to urbanization using camera trap distance sampling (CTDS) in the rural-urban landscape of Tianjin, China. We used generalized additive mixed models (GAMMs) to test the specific responses of their densities to levels of urbanization. Invasive dogs (2.63 individuals/km2, 95% CI: 0.91-7.62) exhibited similar density estimations to cats (2.15 individuals/km2, 95% CI: 1.31-3.50). Amur hedgehogs were the most abundant species (6.73 individuals/km2, 95% CI: 3.15-14.38), followed by Tolai hares (2.22 individuals/km2, 95% CI: 0.87-5.68) and Siberian weasels (2.15 individuals/km2, 95% CI: 1.06-4.36). The densities of cats, Siberian weasels, and Amur hedgehogs increased with the level of urbanization. The population densities of dogs and cats were only influenced by urban-related variables, while the densities of Siberian weasels and Amur hedgehogs were influenced by both urban-related variables and nature-related variables. Our findings highlight that the CTDS is a suitable and promising method for wildlife surveys in rural-urban landscapes, and urban wildlife management needs to consider the integrated repercussions of urban- and nature-related factors, especially the critical impacts of green space habitats at finer scales.

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Hedgehogs occur within an urban mammal guild in the United Kingdom. This guild commonly utilizes anthropogenic food provision, which is potentially beneficial to wild animal populations, but may also bring competitors and predators into proximity, raising the question of how these species interact in urban gardens. In this study, we determined interactions between hedgehogs, foxes, badgers, and domestic cats using videos submitted via citizen science. We analyzed interactions within and between species to determine interaction type, hierarchical relationships, and effect of supplementary food presence/amount. We found that overall agonistic interactions between individuals occurred more frequently (55.4%) than neutral interactions (44.6%) and that interspecific interactions showed greater agonism (55.4%) than intraspecific ones (36%). Within intraspecific interactions, those between hedgehogs were the most agonistic (54.9%) and between badgers the least (6.7%). Species composition of the interaction affected agonism, with interactions between cats and foxes showing the highest level (76.7%). In terms of overall "wins", where access to garden resources was gained, badgers dominated cats, which were dominant or equal to foxes, which dominated hedgehogs. However, hedgehogs exhibited a greater overall proportion of wins (39.3%) relative to cats. Our findings are important in the context of the documented impact of patchy resources on urban wildlife behavior, and we show that provision of anthropogenic food can potentially result in unintended consequences. We recommend actions to reduce proximity of guild competitors in space and time to limit negative effects.

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The red squirrel is among the mammals that have adjusted well to urban habitats. Here, we focused on the two populations inhabiting Warsaw: in a park (with year-round supplemental feeding) and in an urban forest. We hypothesised that park squirrels would have higher body mass (and better body condition), being more stable over the year, and would have a higher breeding rate (i.e., the share of breeding females). Contrary to our hypothesis, forest squirrels were heavier and had better body condition than park squirrels. The body masses of squirrels from both areas were quite stable (with the highest values obtained in spring). Females in better body conditions were more likely to breed. More breeding females and sub-adults were trapped in the park. Regardless of the study site, the highest share of breeding females was in spring, but they also bred in winter and in the remaining seasons. The lower body mass/condition of park squirrels may be possibly explained by high intraspecific competition, or by stable food (and thermal as typical for the city) conditions, in which accumulating fat was not crucial. Mild winter conditions may have also enabled squirrels to breed early. This study showed the high plasticity of red squirrels living in human-transformed habitats.

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Red foxes are a well-established species of urban ecosystems in the UK and worldwide. Understanding the spatial ecology of foxes in urban landscapes is important for enhancement of urban biodiversity and effective disease management. The Resource Dispersion Hypothesis (RDH) holds that territory (home range) size is linked to distribution and richness of habitat patches such that aggregation of rich resources should be negatively associated with range size. Here, we tested the RDH on a sample of 20 red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) in the city of Brighton and Hove. We focused on residential garden areas, as foxes were associated with these in previous studies. We equipped 12 male and 8 female foxes with GPS collars recording at 15 min intervals during discrete seasons over four years. We regressed fox core area size against garden size, number of garden patches, and edge density within and between patches as extracted from GIS in a series of bivariate linear mixed models. We found that foxes used smaller core areas where gardens were large and well-connected and larger core areas where numerous, smaller gardens were fragmented by internal barriers (e.g., fences, walls) or bisected by other habitats such as managed grassland or built-up areas. Our findings confirm the RDH and help to inform future urban planning for wildlife.

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Small- and medium-sized mammals play an important role in the life cycle of tick-borne pathogens in urban habitats. Our aim was to apply the general protocol, DAMA (documentation-assessment-monitoring-action), which is an integrated proposal to build a proactive capacity to understand, anticipate, and respond to the outcomes of accelerating environmental change. Here we tested whether road-killed carcasses in urban areas are useful sources of tissue and parasite samples to investigate these species' contribution to the epidemiology of vector-borne diseases. We collected 29 road-killed and 6 carcasses with different causes of mortality (23 northern white-breasted hedgehogs and 12 from seven other mammal species) mainly from Budapest, Hungary. We used quantitative and conventional PCRs to determine pathogens in 90 collected tissues (52 from hedgehogs; 38 from other species) and 417 ticks that were only found on hedgehogs. Tissue samples revealed a wide range of bacteria including human zoonotic pathogens identified as Anaplasma phagocytophilum ecotype I, Borrelia afzelii, B. spielmanii, Borrelia miyamotoi, Rickettsia helvetica, and Bartonella species. Among the 23 collected hedgehog carcasses, 17 (74%) were infected with A. phagocytophilum, 6 (26%) with Borrelia burgdorferi s.l., 12 (52%) with R. helvetica, and 15 (65%) with Rickettsia sp. Furthermore, we report the first detection of Rickettsia sp. infection in European moles and lesser weasel and R. helvetica in stone marten. Through sequencing B. afzelii, R. helvetica, R. monacensis and A. phagocytophilum ecotype I were identified in the ticks removed from the carcasses. We showed that road-killed urban mammal species are exposed to multiple tick-borne pathogens but further studies have to clarify whether they, in fact, also have a role in their maintenance and spread. Our study also demonstrates that roadkill can be used in the risk assessment of potential human infection and in the implementation of the DAMA protocol.

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The objective of this study was to isolate and characterize Clostridium difficile strains in stool samples from a wild urban mammal, a South American coati (Nasua nasua) in Brazil. Forty-six free-living N. nasua were trapped, and stool samples were collected. C. difficile was isolated from three (6.5%) sampled animals, two strains were toxigenic (A+B+CDT-, PCR ribotype 014/020 and 106) and one was non toxigenic (A-B-CDT-, PCR ribotype 053). The present work confirms that ring-tailed coati (N. nasua) could harbor C. difficile strains, including those PCR ribotypes commonly reported in C. difficile infection in humans.

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