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Diet differentiation between European arvicoline and murine rodents

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Abstract

Small European muroid rodents are generally divided into species which feed on seeds and/or invertebrates and species which feed on green plant material; however, there is considerable plasticity in feeding behavior among species. Here, we analyze diets of 14 low-latitude rodent species from Western Europe based on published studies. The 77 studies were submitted to principal component analysis in order to compare diet plasticity within and between the 14 species. We observed variations in food composition of arvicoline and murine rodents which are associated with differences in morphology and habitat use. Most arvicoline rodents eat mainly green matter of the herbaceous layers of open habitats whereas most murine species are able to use a greater diversity of high energetic plant tissues from denser habitats, where they can exploit the different vegetation layers. Despite its phylogenetic position among arvicoline rodents, the bank vole (Myodes glareolus) shows morpho-physiological and ecological traits which tend to be more similar to murine species. These intermediate evolutionary characters seem consistent with the fact that bank voles are able to exploit a wide spectrum of trophic resources from low energetic lignified tissues to high calorific invertebrate prey. This results in a very diverse diet, which is intermediate between true herbivorous arvicolines and typical seed- and invertebrate-eating murine species. More investigations on genetic affiliation and ecological driving forces will help understand this intermediate position of bank vole diet, and further investigations among other arvicoline species will help determine if bank voles and other Myodes species are unique.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Valérie Briand who helped us in performing bibliographic survey on the “Thomson-ISI Web of Knowledge/Web of Science”. We thank two anonymous lectors for their review of early drafts; their comments improved the text and the English considerably. This paper is a contribution to the research team CAREN-OSUR, UMR CNRS 6553 “ECOBIO”, University of Rennes 1.

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  1. CAREN-OSUR, UMR CNRS 6553 “ECOBIO”, Université de Rennes1, Ave. Gal. Leclerc, 35042, Rennes Cedex, France

    Alain Butet & Yannick R. Delettre

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  1. Alain Butet
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  2. Yannick R. Delettre
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Correspondence to Alain Butet.

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Communicated by: Jan M. Wójcik

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13364_2011_49_MOESM1_ESM.doc

Mean food composition of 14 small European rodent species expressed as mean relative volumetric abundance (in percent). The sample size (n), yearly replicates (periods), countries, and habitats are mentioned when available in publications (n = 77). Fg: fungi, M-L: mosses and lichens, UVP underground vegetative part of plant, AVP: aerial vegetative part of plants, Fl: flowers, S-F: seed and fruits, Inv.: invertebrates, Vert.: vertebrates, Un.: unidentified material (DOC 180 kb)

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Butet, A., Delettre, Y.R. Diet differentiation between European arvicoline and murine rodents. Acta Theriol 56, 297–304 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13364-011-0049-6

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