A Peculiar Neighbor of a Subtropical City of Latin America: The Synanthropic Rodents

ABSTRACT Unplanned urbanization has led to a heterogeneous landscape combining cities, crops, and native forests, a pattern expected to continue under current global and local projections. Studies in developing subtropical cities remain scarce and seldom explore how natural environments, unplanned urban expansion, and rodent communities interact. Some suggest rodent diversity increases in transitional and periurban zones compared to highly urbanized areas. This study analyzed the environmental characteristics and rodent abundance in Puerto Iguazú, Misiones, Argentina, a subtropical city located within the Upper Paraná Atlantic Forest. Quarterly rodent surveys were conducted from July 2017 to March 2020, sampling 15 households per survey, totaling 127 urban, 111 periurban households, and 9335 trap‐nights. Among the seventy‐eight rodents captured, Rattus rattus (54) was the dominant species across urban and peri‐urban areas, followed by Mus musculus (20), whereas Akodon montensis (4) was found exclusively in the peri‐urban zone. Although a lower proportion of urban houses showed rodent presence compared to peri‐urban ones, overall rodent abundance was higher in urban areas. Rodent abundance and distribution were shaped by multiple environmental factors. Rattus rattus trap success was influenced by certain household characteristics and increased with higher cumulative precipitation and during the cold season. Mus musculus trap success responded mainly to cumulative rainfall and decreased with the distance to natural protected areas. These findings indicate that, in small subtropical cities undergoing ongoing change and growth, rodent abundance and distribution patterns are primarily shaped by meteorological conditions, together with neighborhood or household characteristics, operating across multiple spatial and temporal scales.