Adaptive radiation of the genus Rattus

Rats are an important group of rodents originating and living mainly in southeast Asia. They are important pests and reservoirs of zoonosis. Yet, about many species we only have basic information. Here, I summarized available information about 66 species of the genus Rattus and 10 species of the genus Bandicota, Diplothrix, Limnomys, Nesokia and Tarsomys. I focused on distribution, ecology and morphology (body lenght, tail lenght, hind food lenght and ear lenght) and their mutual relationships. The body lenght differs beetwen phylogenetic lineages and beetwen habitats. The other morphological characters (tail lenght, hind food lenght and ear lenght) correlated with body lenght. Further, I describe an adaptive radiation of rats. Rats are separated into several lineages, diferring in their geographic distribution and ecology. Moreover, many species are commensal, that is benefiting from close relationship with humans. Commensalism species can be found in several lineages of rats, therefore commensalism probably developped independently more than once. The commencalism was origined several times. I discuse why are some commensal species more successful than others. Key words: adaptive radiation, Bandicota, commensal species, ecomorphology, Rattus, rodents, southeast Asi