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By Tsemone and Jingyi

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According to the food web below, rats are in the 2nd tropic level, meaning that they eat plants and are eaten by carnivores. As you can see, birds and rabbits occupy the same level. However, rats have been known to eat other animals, lizards, fish and human babies included (Animal Diversity Web, 2004.).

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Where there is food and shelter, there are rats, which is why many of them can be found in our cities.

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A social group of rats and their breeding deme.

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Change overtime due to environmental factors 

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Change overtime due to environmental factors 

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An earthquake can impact the rat's ecosystem because Norway rats live underground in burrows. Therefore, an earthquake could destroy their homes, impacting their ecosystem. This chance event could kill many rats, and it also could cause a genetic drift.
A forest fire would also impact the rat's ecosystem because they also tend to live in forests; therefore, a fire would force the rats out of their habitats and. This chance event can also kill many rats and cause genetic drift.

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The Norway rat is type II on the survivorship curve: constant loss survivorship curve. This means the rat has a relatively constant mortality at all life stages.

Number of Survivors vs. Age

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Rats have a high capacity for population growth. It shows in the way that they reproduce: profusely. One female can have up to 60 babies a year. However, they will always hit a carrying capacity because an increase in offspring means a decrease in food and shelter and an increase of diseases. Therefore their populations will always level off.

Specific research in England has shown that the maximum log-likelihood reached a plateau between K = 3 and K = 5 (Haniza, et al., 2015).

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Animal Diversity Web, 2004. University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. Accessed May 11, 2016. Available from: http://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Rattus_norvegicus/
Chaparral (2016). Blue Planet Biomes. Accessed May 11, 2016. Available from:
http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/chaparral.htm
Close-up of a norway rat on a plain white background. Available from: http://www.thehitmanpestcontrol.com/Images/page-images/norway-rat.jpg
Haniza, M., Adams, S., Jones, E., MacNicoll, A., Mallon, E., Smith, R. and M. Lambert. (2015). Large-scale structure of brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) populations in England: effects on rodenticide resistance. PeerJ. 3(1): all pages.
The forest biome (2016). University of California Museum of Paleontology. Accessed May 11, 2016. Available from: http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibits/biomes/forests.php
Map of the world's major biomes. Available from: http://www.hodinhhai.com/uploads/1/2/6/8/12680760/2264246.jpg?1355656642
Savanna (2016). Blue Planet Biomes. Accessed May 11, 2016. Available from:
http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/savanna.htm
[Untitled photograph of a survivorship curve]. Available from:
http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/42/6542-004-BE57D88E.jpg
[Untitled photograph of Norway rats in a clump]. Available from: https://www.aepma.com.au/Resources/PageContent/Files/FileImages/5b3a9c9b-0924-4b67-8d6a-c44a335a6f8a.jpg
[Untitled photograph of the breeding deme of rats]. Available from: http://www.ratbehavior.org/images/BreedingDeme.jpg
[Untitled photograph of a rat's food web]. Available from: http://www.ecologyedu.com/education_resources/what_is_a_food_chain_what_is_a_food_web_files/blocks_image_15_1.png

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Humans are a mutualist species to rats, because where humans live, rats also tend to live. And their population grows along with ours.

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Warm throughout the year, with lots of rain. Humidity ranging between 77 and 88% More than 100 inches of rain each year (The forest biome, 2016).

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Hot and dry, the plants there are those which are adapted to that sort of environment, with hard leaves that can hold water (Chaparral, 2016).

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Savannah is the biome occurring between rainforest and desert. It has clumps of trees and bushes, not enough rain falls in savannahs to make a forest.

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Dispersion pattern-Rats live in complex social groups. The group contains a set hierarchy and all rats know their places. Because they are territorial, rats live in clumps with their social group.
Density dependent factors that impact rats- food shortage, illness, water shortage, resource shortage
Independent factors that impact rats- weather, natural disaster, human predation

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Has adapted to survive in colder climates (Animal Diversity Web, 2004).

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Savannah/Grassland, Chaparral, Rainforest, Scrub Forest. Refer to the map for where those biomes are located.
Although these biomes are listed as ideal, rats live on every continent except Antarctica.