Population dynamics of the common shrew (Sorex araneus) in Central European forest clearings (original) (raw)
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Abundance of Common Shrew (Sorex Araneus) in Selected Forest Habitats of Moravia (Czech Republic)
Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis
Abundance of common shrew (Sorex araneus) was evaluated on selected forest sites in Moravia, Czech Republic. Six types of habitats were assessed: forest clearings and mature forests in lowlands (173-233 m), uplands (360-600 m), and mountains (600-1200 m). Data were collected over five-year-long periods; 2006-2010 (uplands) and 2007-2011 (lowlands and mountains). Small terrestrial mammals were captured using snap traps laid in lines. In total, 200 individuals of common shrew were trapped. Relative abundance among different habitats was statistically evaluated. The highest relative abundance was found in mountain forest clearings (n = 132, rA = 0.719). Lower abundance was in upland forest clearings (n = 15, rA = 0.384), in mature mountain forests (n = 32, rA = 0.355), and in the lowland forest clearings (n = 9 rA = 0.109). The lowest abundance was in mature upland forests (n = 9, rA = 0.031) and in mature lowland forests (n = 3, rA = 0.011). Differences between sites were statistically significant. Among all altitudes, shrew populations in plantations were significantly more numerous than those in mature forests. Mountain forest clearings with dense herb layer proved to be the most suitable habitat while mature lowland forests with less developed herbaceous layer were the least suitable. Forest clearings proved to be an important refuge for the populations of common shrew.
2016
In the years between 2005 and 2012, this study has evaluated the relative abundance and diversity of insectivores of the shrew family (Soricidae) in lowland, upland, and mountain forest habitats of Moravia. In each of these three different elevation levels, two types of habitats were further defined. They include old growth forests, with tall, fruiting trees and a limited herbaceous forest floor, as well as forest clearings with dense undergrowth of herbs and grasses, which means a total of six types of habitats. Shrews were captured using snap traps set up in lines. A total of 302 individuals belonging to seven species were found. The most abundant and most dominant species was Sorex araneus (rA = 0.313; D = 73.45%), while other species were present in much lower numbers. To evaluate the communities, the used ecological indices included diversity, equitability, and similarity. The highest number of species was found in mountain clearings (n = 5), while the lowest occurred in old up...
Long-term changes of small mammal communities in heterogenous landscapes of Central Europe
European Journal of Wildlife Research, 2017
Long-term dynamics of small mammal communities are perennial themes in population ecology. However, comprehensive studies on the effect of environmental factors on population dynamics are still rare. Here, we aimed to analyze long-term data on Central European communities of small mammals occurring in two habitats that greatly differed in their structure, successional stages, and forest management. We found a richer community structure in young spruce plantations compared to mature European beech forests. In young spruce plantations, Myodes glareolus and Apodemus flavicollis abundances increased and Sorex araneus abundances decreased during the study period as a result of forest growth and management. Community structure in mature beech forests did not change significantly during the study period. Apodemus flavicollis and Myodes glareolus showed 3-and 5-year population cycles, respectively, and their abundances were simultaneously positively correlated with relative abundance of masts. Weather also played a role, while the effect of snow cover was pronounced only in mountain areas where it negatively affected Microtus agrestis and Sorex araneus abundances, temperature positively and rainfall negatively influenced Myodes glareolus and Apodemus flavicollis abundances across both studied habitats. Our findings document that a complex of environmental factors significantly affects the structure and dynamics of small mammal communities in Central Europe, and both local biotic and abiotic factors should be considered in future studies.
Animals, 2021
It is known that species’ distributions are influenced by several ecological factors. Nonetheless, the geographical scale upon which the influence of these factors is perceived is largely undefined. We assessed the importance of competition in regulating the distributional limits of species at large geographical scales. We focus on species with similar diets, the European Soricidae shrews, and how interspecific competition changes along climatic gradients. We used presence data for the seven most widespread terrestrial species of Soricidae in Europe, gathered from GBIF, European museums, and climate data from WorldClim. We made use of two Joint Species Distribution Models to analyse the correlations between species’ presences, aiming to understand the distinct roles of climate and competition in shaping species’ distributions. Our results support three key conclusions: (i) climate alone does not explain all species’ distributions at large scales; (ii) negative interactions, such as ...
Responses of small mammals to habitat characteristics in Southern Carpathian forests
2021
Compared to Northern Carpathians, the small mammal fauna of Southern Carpathian forests is poorly known, with no data on habitat use; our study seeks to fill this gap. To this end, we conducted a survey in the Southern Carpathians for five years, assessing habitat use by small mammals in forests along an elevational gradient. Trapping was done using live traps set in transects at elevations between 820 and 2040 m. For each transect we evaluated variables related to vegetation structure, habitat complexity, and geographical location. We considered abundance, species composition and species richness as response variables. The rodents Apodemus flavicollis and Myodes glareolus and the shrew Sorex araneus were common and dominant. Their abundance were positively correlated with tree cover, the best explanatory variable. Responses to other variables were mixed. The strong divergence in the relative habitat use by the three most abundant species may act as a mechanism that enables their co...
Acta Theriologica, 1995
The common shrew Sorex araneus Linnaeus, 1758 and pygmy shrew S. minutus Linnaeus, 1766 were live-trapped for 10 months in a spruce plantation. Mean home range sizes were 1058 (SD = 381) m2 for the common shrew and 2146 (SD = 147) m2 for the pgymy shrew. The density estimates o f S. araneus varied from 4 ind/ha in winter to 26 ind/ha in summer, and these of S. minutus were 2 ind/ha and 7 ind/ha, respectively. Peak densities for both species occurred during August. It appears that maintaining a viable population of these two shrew species in this spruce plantation requires no special precaution.
Population demography of the northern short-tailed shrew, Blarina brevicauda, was studied for 25 years in bluegrass, alfalfa, and tallgrass habitats in east-central Illinois. The population in bluegrass had higher over-winter population density, began increasing earlier in the year, peaked earlier in the year, had higher mean monthly population densities and amplitudes of fluctuation, and remained higher longer than did populations in alfalfa and tallgrass. Survival rates and persistence were greater in bluegrass and tallgrass than in alfalfa. The species displayed annual population fluctuations with little variation in amplitude among years in all three habitats. Seasonal reproduction appeared responsible for the annual fluctuations. Survival did not vary in relation to season, but was positively correlated with annual peak densities whereas reproduction was not. There was no correlation between population densities of voles during April-August and annual peak densities of B. brevicauda. We conclude that annual fluctuations in B. brevicauda are driven by seasonal reproduction, while variation in mortality, most likely from predation, may explain differences in the amplitudes of annual peaks.
Canadian Journal of Zoology, 2004
The population demography of the northern short-tailed shrew, Blarina brevicauda (Say, 1823), was studied for 25 years in bluegrass, alfalfa, and tallgrass habitats in east-central Illinois. The population in bluegrass had higher over-winter population density, began increasing earlier in the year, peaked earlier in the year, had higher mean monthly densities and amplitudes of fluctuation, and remained higher for longer than did populations in alfalfa and tallgrass. Survival rates were greater in bluegrass and tallgrass than in alfalfa. The species displayed annual population fluctuations with little variation in amplitude among years in all three habitats. Seasonal reproduction appeared to be responsible for the annual fluctuations. Survival did not vary in relation to season, but was positively correlated with annual peak densities, whereas reproduction was not. There was no correlation between population densities of voles during April–August and annual peak densities of B. brevi...
Notes, 2006
We analyzed shrew community data from 398,832 pitfall trapnights at 303 sites across the upper Piedmont, Blue Ridge, northern Ridge and Valley, southern Ridge and Valley, Cumberland Plateau and Allegheny Mountains and Plateau sections of the central and southern Appalachian Mountains from Alabama to Pennsylvania. The objectives of our research were to describe regional species distributions and to identify macro-environmental factors important to shrews at both the community and individual species scales. Our study documented the presence of nine species with a low of three in the southern Ridge and Valley section to a high of eight in the Blue Ridge section where the Appalachian, Austral and Boreomontane fauna elements converge. Region-wide, shrew species richness was related to increasing elevation and was higher in mesic forest types than in xeric types. Conformity to expected distribution of shrew bodysize (small, medium and large) appropriate for the central and southern Appalachian species pool showed no relationship to elevation gradients. However, xeric forest types conformed to a balanced assemblage of size classes less than expected. Among individual species, presence of masked shrew (Jbrex cinere~s) and smoky shrew (SorexJgme~rrs) was associated strongly with increasing elevation and mesic forests, whereas presence of southeastern shrew (Sorex htlgirost7atis) and southern short-tailed shrew (Bhrdna camhensis) showed an opposite trend with elevation and forest type. The strong relationships we documented between presence of these four species with elevation and forest type facilitated reliable predictive habitat modeling. Conversely , the presence of pygmy shrew (Sorex hoyt) and northern short-tailed shrew (BLarina brevica~da) was not linked to forest type and only weakly linked to increasing elevation. Our analyses failed to produce meaningful relationshps about extreme habitat specialists documented by our survey, the rock shrew (Sorex dj)ar) associated with colluvial talus, the water shrew (Sorex palastn's) associated with high-gradient streams, and the least shrew (Cyjtootis pama) associated with oldfields and early sucessional habitats.
Cyclic voles and shrews and non-cyclic mice in a marginal grassland within European temperate forest
Acta Theriologica, 2012
Cyclic population dynamics of small mammals are not restricted to the boreal and arctic zones of Eurasia and North America, but long-term data series from lower latitudes are still less common. We demonstrated here the presence of periodic oscillations in small mammal populations in eastern Poland using 22-year (1986-2007) trapping data from marginal meadow and river valley grasslands located in the extensive temperate woodland of Białowieża Primeval Forest. The two most common species inhabiting meadows and river valleys, root vole Microtus oeconomus and common shrew Sorex araneus, exhibited synchronous periodic changes, characterised by a 3-year time lag as indicated by an autocorrelation function. Moreover, the cycles of these two species were synchronous within both habitats. Population dynamics of the striped field mouse Apodemus agrarius was not cyclic. However, this species regularly reached maximum density 1 year before the synchronized peak of root voles and common shrews, which may suggest the existence of interspecific competition. Dynamics of all three species was dominated by direct density-dependent process, whereas delayed density dependent feedback was significant only in the root vole and common shrew. Climatic factors acting in winter and spring (affecting mainly survival and initial reproduction rates) were more important than those acting in summer and autumn and affected significantly only the common shrew. High temperatures in winter and spring had positive effects on autumn-to-autumn changes in abundance of this species, whereas deep snow in combination with high rainfall in spring negatively affected population increase rates in common shrew.