Israel has been blessed with diverse sandy areas that spread from ‘Nahal Betzet’ area (650 mm of annual average of rainfall) in the north to ‘Samar Sands’ (30 mm) in the south, within distance of 360 kms. This unique geographical phenomenon provides wonderful opportunity to study biogeographical and macroecological patterns.
Competition between psammophilic rodents
The sandy habitats in Israel are inhabited by a high diversity of rodent species. Previous studies have shown that differences in resource consumption, habitat specialization and temporal partitioning promote the coexistence between similar species, maintaining the high rodent diversity not only at the landscape scale but also at the local scale. For example, we have been able to trap 8 different species of rodents within 9-hectare area in a given trapping session in ‘Shadmot Shezaf’ plain, located near ‘Shunra Sands’. We have conducted several studies on the sandy rodent community and we still keep our seasonal trapping session to monitor the population dynamics of rodents in the sandy sites of ‘Agur Sands’ and ‘Shunra Sands’.
