Microhabitat partitioning of <em>Apodemus flavicollis</em> and <em>Myodes glareolus</em> in the sub-montane Alps: a preliminary assessment

• Main Authors: Sabine Marlene Hille, Alessio Mortelliti
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Associazione Teriologica Italiana 2011-02-01
• Series: Hystrix, the Italian Journal of Mammalogy
• Subjects: ecology; wood mouse; bank vole; forest; discriminant function analysis
• Online Access: http://www.italian-journal-of-mammalogy.it/article/view/4458
• ISSN: 0394-1914; 1825-5272

Interspecific competition can cause partitioning in habitat use by sympatric species. This study gives a preliminary contribution to the understanding of microhabitat partitioning of <em>Apodemus flavicollis</em> and <em>Myodes glareolus</em> in sub-montane habitats. A total<br />of 1000 trap nights in the subalpine forest in the Austrian Ötscher mountain showed that high- and low-tree cover, high-shrub cover, plot location in or out of the forest, and distance from the forest edge were the variables which discriminated the sites of capture of the two species. <em>A. flavicollis</em> seemed to be more associated with the forest edge than <em>M. glareolus</em>, which, in contrast, preferred areas well within the forest with high tree and shrub cover. Our results suggest that the two species show some level of partitioning according to microhabitat structure.