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Can landscape properties predict occurrence of grey-sided voles?

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Population Ecology

Abstract

There has been a long-term decline in spring and fall numbers of Clethrionomys rufocanus in boreal Sweden in 1971–2005. Previous studies on permanent sampling plots in the centre of 2.5 × 2.5 km landscapes suggested that habitat fragmentation (sensu destruction) could have contributed to the decline. Therefore, we tested these findings in a field study and compared trapping results on the central sampling plots of landscapes with a low degree of fragmentation (LDF) and of “hot spot” type with trapping results in managed forest landscapes with a high degree of fragmentation (HDF). We predicted that C. rufocanus would be more common on the LDF plots. We used our permanent plots supplemented with a new sample of plots, mainly of the rare LDF type, inside or just outside the long-term study area. Very few voles were trapped on both plot types, and no difference was found. However, a subsequent pilot study with trapping in a national park with large areas of pristine, unfragmented forest yielded more voles than in the managed, more fragmented, areas. Consequently, the initial field study data and some other recent data were also re-analysed from a “local patch quality” perspective. This alternative approach revealed the positive importance of large focal patches of forest >60 years old and their content of old-growth (pine) forest (>100 years). Interestingly, at the landscape level, the frequency distribution of patches of forest >60 years old, old-growth (>100 years), and especially of old-growth pine forest (>100 years), relative to the properties of plots with C. rufocanus, suggested that there are few forest patches left that are suitable for C. rufocanus. Our current results suggest that habitat fragmentation cannot be excluded as a contributing cause to the long-term decline of C. rufocanus in boreal Sweden.

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Acknowledgments

We thank B. Christensen, X. Lambin, M. Mönkkönen, V. Selås, N. Yoccoz and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, and T. Hipkiss for kindly improving the English. Financial support was provided by grants from the Swedish Environment Protection Agency (via the National Environmental Monitoring Programme) to B. Hörnfeldt, from the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences, and Spatial Planning (Formas) to F. Ecke and B. Hörnfeldt (21.0/2004-0393), from the Technical Faculty Board of Luleå University of Technology and “Stiftelsen Oscar och Lili Lamms Minne” to F. Ecke, and from “Helge Ax:son Johnsons Stiftelse” and “Längmanska Kulturfonden” to P. Christensen. We also acknowledge the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, the Swedish Forest Agency, and the MISTRA research programme Remote Sensing for the Environment (RESE) for co-financing the production of the kNN-dataset.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Environmental Science, Umeå University, 901 87, Umeå, Sweden

    Pernilla Christensen & Birger Hörnfeldt

  2. Department of Forest Resource Management and Geomatics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 901 83, Umeå, Sweden

    Pernilla Christensen, Per Sandström & Mats Nilsson

  3. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361, Laxenburg, Austria

    Frauke Ecke

  4. Division of Applied Geology, Landscape Ecology Group, Luleå University of Technology, 971 87, Luleå, Sweden

    Frauke Ecke

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  1. Pernilla Christensen
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  2. Frauke Ecke
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  3. Per Sandström
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  4. Mats Nilsson
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  5. Birger Hörnfeldt
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Correspondence to Pernilla Christensen.

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Christensen, P., Ecke, F., Sandström, P. et al. Can landscape properties predict occurrence of grey-sided voles?. Popul Ecol 50, 169–179 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10144-008-0077-5

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