Bioscience

Seasonal change in space-use, body mass, dispersal and survival of voles from winter to summer

Spring is a particular interesting period for studies of population processes in small rodents, as overwintering individuals start to prepare for the reproductive season by resuming growth and males establish territories. At the same time predation pressure increases because birds of prey and other predators also start to breed. The student(s) in this project will use state-of-the-art spatial explicit capture-recapture methods to describe variation in space use (home-range size), body mass, dispersal and survival of field vole (Norwegian: Markmus) from winter to spring.

Bildet kan inneholde: ?koregion, himmel, plantesamfunn, naturlig landskap, naturlige omgivelser.

An important part of the project will be to describe sex-differences in these traits. It is anticipated that males will increase the size of their home range to a much larger extent than females when they become sexually mature, and that they will do this earlier in the season due to male-male competition for territories (“arms race”). It is also anticipated that males will pay the highest cost of reproduction in terms of reduced survival early in the season when they establish territories and gain access to females, whereas females will have reduced survival while nursing young (usually while being pregnant) later in the season. However, such patterns have yet not been well described.

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