To investigate the influence of fire on the communities of small mammals in the Kafue National Park, we trapped 105 individuals (belonging to the families Nesomyids, Murids, Sciurids, and Soricids) in the dry season of 2014 and 2015. We employed 6,273 trap-nights in sites representing three major habitats of small mammals (grassland, miombo woodland, and termitaria) and two fire regimes: namely, high and low fire recurrence. Fire age was assigned based on the last event of fire at a trapping site. These three (vegetation, fire recurrence and age) served as predicator variables, whilst community structure, species richness, and body mass served as response variables. Vegetation had a significant effect on all response variables. Communities in termitaria and grassland overlapped, whilst miombo woodland was set apart. Termitaria was
the most species-rich of the habitats and may serve as refugia for species in times of disturbance. In the low and high fire recurrence areas, fire age had different effects on the response variables. In the low fire recurrence areas, species richness increased with time since the last fire occurred, while in the high fire recurrence areas, it decreased accordingly. This could be in response to the reduction in cover available to shelter from predation and other environmental factors, as fire acts to reduce vegetation biomass. This response could also be a function of the animals’ life-history traits, particularly of body size, which decreased as time passed since the last fire, implying a higher vulnerability of the smaller-sized species to the current fire regime. Further, fire also had an influence on the dietary resource use of rodents, as they tended to broaden their dietary niches in areas of high fire recurrence compared to low fire recurrence areas. This corroborates the notion that small mammals can cope with either frequent or infrequent burning.