Spatial patterns of rodent communities in the Ramon erosion cirque, Negev Highlands, Israel B. Krasnov*, G. Shenbrot*, I. Khokhlova† & E. Ivanitskaya‡ *Ramon Science Center, Ben-Gurion University of the N egev, M izpe Ramon 80600, Israel †Desert Animal Adaptations and Husbandry, Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the N egev, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel †Institute of Evolution, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel ( Received 13 July 1994, accepted 13 October 1994) Habitat distribution of 12 rodent species in the Negev Highlands, Israel was studied. Five main habitat types were distinguished, based on similarity in rodent species composition of sample plots: (i) sand dunes, (ii) flat gravel plains (hammadas), (iii) limestone cliffs, (iv) wadis among loess hills and (v) wadis among gravel plains. Species richness was highest in (v) and lowest in (iii). Species diversity was highest in (iii) and lowest in (v) and intermediate and similar in all other habitat types. Rodent biomass was the lowest in (ii) and highest in (iv). Indirect rodent ordination showed that species were spatially segregated along the first three ordination axes. These axes may be interpreted as (a) a gradient of soil hardness from rock to sand, (b) a gradient of relief from cliffs to flat plains and (c) a gradient of vegetation density. We classified rodents into five groups by their habitat preferences: petrophyles ( Acomys spp. and Sekeetamys calurus ), psammophyles ( Gerbillus gerbillus ), inhabitants of densely vegetated wadis ( Psammomys obesus and Eliomys melanurus ), inhabitants of open gravel plains ( Jaculus jaculus, Gerbillus henleyi and G. nanus ), and habitat generalists ( M eriones crassus and Gerbillus dasyurus ). ©1996 Academic Press Limited Keywords: rodents; habitats; desert; community structure Introduction In modern ecology the term ‘habitat’ is used in a variety of ways. Most often this term is used to describe an area of a particular relief, vegetation and soil structure. It is commonly thought that the structure of an animal community is determined by the habitat structure of an area. Another concept is to consider habitat as related to a particular species or group of species. In the framework of this concept, habitat is a patch with a set of environmental Journal of Arid Environments (1996) 32: 319–327 0140–1963/96/030319+ 09 $18.00/0 © 1996 Academic Press Limited