Diversity and Status of Small Mammals of Mountainous Range Karakoram and the Western Himalayas in Gilgit-Baltistan, (Pakistan)

The abundance and community composition of small mammals play a key role as biological indicator for environment health in functioning of any ecosystem. The small mammals serve on second trophic level in food chain and have versatile nature to adopt any habitat (wild to commensal habitat). The present study is conducted in district Gilgit rural areas (Shigar, Khaplu, Kharmang). The study started was conducted from 1 February 2019 to 1july 2019. In experimental design of (6 houses, 3 shops and one farm house), 300 small mammals were trapped during 600 trap nights and 600 traps. Among the captured small mammals were, the house rat (Rattus rattus), house mouse (Mus musculus), Kashmir Field Mouse (Apodemus rusiges), one species of the Kashmir pigmy shrew, (Sorex planiceps) and one species of (Rattus turkistanica).The order of dominance was (Rattus rattus) 30%, followed by mus musculus 23%, followed by apodemus rusigus 20% Sorex planiceps 17% and least occurred species was Rattus turkistanica 10%.