摘要
Survival and maturation rates of female Mastomys natalensis were analysed based on a ten-year monthlycapture-recapture data set. We investigated whether direct and delayed density dependent and independent (rainfall)variables accounted for the considerable variation in demographic traits. It was estimated that seasonal and annualcovariates accounted for respectively 29 and 26% of the total variation in maturation rates and respectively 17 and11% of the variation in survival rates. Explaining the between-year differences in maturation rates with annual pastrainfall or density did not improve the model fit. On the other hand we showed that maturation rates were correlatednegatively with density the previous month and positively to cumulative rainfall over the past three months.Survival estimates of both adults and subadults varied seasonally, with higher estimates during the increase phase(dry season). The subadults were characterised by a very high survival rate (> 0.95) during this phase. In thedecrease phase only minor differences were found between survival rates of subadults and adults. We found that39% of the between-year variation in survival can be explained by accumulated rainfall over the past year.
