Rodent Pests: Ecology and Management

Rodents are the most diverse mammalian order and they inhabit all continents except Antarctica. They are important elements of ecosystems with diverse population dynamics, life history traits and behaviour. Some can cause detrimental damage to crops (agriculture, forestry), intensive livestock operations, infrastructure (urban habitats), human and animal health (rodent-borne pathogens) and in conservation (invasives). Many rodent species provide positive ecosystem services. This revised, largely restructured and substantially updated third edition focuses on both ecology and management of rodents bringing together the expertise of 45 authors from 20 countries. The link between ecology and management is sensible scientifically and benefits application. This makes the book an essential resource for practitioners and scientists involved in basic rodent research, rodent pest control, conservation, and public health.

Dr. Jens Jacob studied ecology and zoology in Jena, Germany and Miami, Florida, USA. His scientific focus is on applied rodent research. Following positions at CSIRO Wildlife Research and the Pest Animal Cooperative Research Centre (Australia), he became the leader of the Rodent Research Group of the Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants (German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture) in Münster, Germany. In the past 30 years, Dr. Jacob has conducted laboratory, enclosure and field-based projects in Asia, Australia, Europe and the Pacific funded by national and international donors. He has published more than 170 scientific articles, chairs expert groups and is subject editor vertebrates for international peer-reviewed journals.

Grant Singleton is a Visiting Professor at the Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, UK, and an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, USA. He spent 23 years as a researcher at CSIRO, Canberra, Australia, and 18 years as a Principal Scientist and consultant at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines. He has been involved in research on rodent pests of agriculture and their biology and management in cereal agro-ecosystems in Asia and Australia for 40 years. In eastern Africa, Grant has been on the Scientific Advisory Board of four projects on rodent biology and management. His research strongly aligned with end-users, particularly farmer groups. He co-developed a new management paradigm: "integrated ecologically-based rodent management" in the late 1990s and this approach is now adopted in more than 40 countries.