Abstract
Biodiversity is often highest at ecotones. However, edge effects vary among species and the spatial extent has rarely been quantified. Rodents form an important part of the food chain and thus are keystones of the ecosystem. We measured the species richness and abundance of rodents at ecotones between forests and three types of open agricultural biotopes (grasslands, rapeseed fields, and cereal fields) along perpendicular transects. The species richness and relative abundance of rodents were highest at the forest/grassland ecotone where the densities of the yellow-necked mouse (Apodemus flavicollis) and the striped field mouse (A. agrarius) were highest. The highest density of the forest-dwelling bank vole (Myodes glareolus) was recorded next to grasslands; however, the abundance of this species increased towards the forest interior. The positive edge effect of ecotones on species richness and total abundance did not exceed 10 m. Our results suggest that maintaining narrow grasslands at the margins of crop fields would strengthen rodent communities at ecotones as well as in adjacent forests.
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Acknowledgements
Ulvi Selgis, Kylle Kiristaja and Marilin Mõtlep assisted us during fieldwork. We would also like to thank Tiit Maran and Jaanus Remm for useful recommendations for establishing the methodology for trapping small mammals.
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The study was supported by the NGO Eagle Club and by institutional research funding IUT21-1 at the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research.
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Conceptualization, GT and ÜV; methodology, GT and ÜV; formal analysis, ÜV; investigation GT; data curation, GT and ÜV; writing — original draft preparation, GT and ÜV; writing — review & editing, GT and ÜV; visualization, GT and ÜV; project administration, ÜV; funding acquisition, ÜV.
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Tõnisalu, G., Väli, Ü. Edge effect in rodent populations at the border between agricultural landscapes and forests. Eur J Wildl Res 68, 34 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-022-01580-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-022-01580-z