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Interactions between gray-sided voles (Clethrionomys rufucanus) and bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus), their main winter food plant

  • Plant Animal Interactions
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Abstract

We compared the abundance, population structure and palatability of bilberry ramets on vole-free islands, islands with voles but no predators (predator-free islands) and mainland sites with both voles and predators. As expected, bilberry biomass was strongly correlated with the herbivory pressure exerted by the voles, since it was significantly lower on the mainland, and much (>80%) lower on the predator-free islands, than on the vole-free islands. However, another finding, which conflicts with hypotheses postulating that herbivory generally induces plant defenses, was that voles preferred ramets from predator-free islands. Bilberry plants were fairly tolerant to grazing since they compensated for some of the lost tissue by producing more new ramets. This response should promote stability in the plant–herbivore interaction by reducing the impact of past grazing on current food production and thus minimizing time delays in the interactions that could potentially generate population cycles.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Swedish Natural Science Research Council, Swedish Council for Forestry and Agricultural Research, European Commission (projects: DART, grant ENV4-CT97–0586; and LACOPE, grant EVK-2-CT_2002-00150) and the Academy of Finland for their financial support and the Norwegian authorities for the necessary permits. We also want to thank N. R. Johnsen, and O. Eriksen for technical assistance, and numerous field workers for their devoted work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Environmental Science, Umeå University, 901 78, Umeå, Sweden

    Jonas Dahlgren, Maria Sjödin & Johan Olofsson

  2. Section of Ecology, Department of Biology, University of Turku, 20014, Turku, Finland

    Lauri Oksanen

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  1. Jonas Dahlgren
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  2. Lauri Oksanen
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  3. Maria Sjödin
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  4. Johan Olofsson
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Correspondence to Jonas Dahlgren.

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Communicated by Julia Koricheva.

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Dahlgren, J., Oksanen, L., Sjödin, M. et al. Interactions between gray-sided voles (Clethrionomys rufucanus) and bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus), their main winter food plant. Oecologia 152, 525–532 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-007-0664-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-007-0664-8

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