Pecularities of habitats of the common dormouse, Muscardinus avellanarius, within its distributional range and in Lithuania

Title:

Pecularities of habitats of the common dormouse, Muscardinus avellanarius, within its distributional range and in Lithuania
A review

Creator:

Juškaitis, Rimvydas

Identifier:

https://cdk.lib.cas.cz/client/handle/uuid:94f01c40-b6a8-30c7-d046-6da5980c29bb
uuid:94f01c40-b6a8-30c7-d046-6da5980c29bb

Subject:

dormice, habitat requirements, population density, and forest management

Type:

article and TEXT

Description:

On the basis of previous studies of the common dormouse Muscardinus avellanarius concentrated on deciduous woodlands in the southern counties of Great Britain, it was stated that optimal habitat for M. avellanarius should contain a high diversity of suitable shrub and tree species to provide continuous food supply through activity season and appropriate physical structure. However, both the present review of M. avellanarius habitats within its distributional range and recent dormouse studies in other parts of Great Britain indicate that M. avellanarius actually inhabits a much wider variety of habitats, and do not require specialised habitats as previously supposed. M. avellanarius habitats in Lithuania differ considerably from the optimal habitats described for this species, about 40 % of localities being situated in coniferous- dominated forests. Habitat quality may result in a very low average population density of only about one adult per hectare. However, despite of absence of optimal habitats and low population density, M. avellanarius is widespread in Lithuania, and no decline is observed in their abundance and distribution. Forest management (increasing forest cover, planting of native tree species, not too large fragmentation of forest tracts) has been favourable for M. avellanarius in Lithuania.

Language:

English

Rights:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Source:

Folia zoologica | 2007 Volume:56 | Number:4

Harvested from:

CDK

Metadata only:

false