Berg, Lena
- Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Abstract
Nest site selection of dormice was studied in two different landscapes in southern Sweden: a forest-dominated landscape and an open landscape dominated by farmland, pastures and apple orchards. Randomly selected plots (10 x 10 m) were searched for dormouse nests and habitat characteristics of plots with and without nests were compared with logistic regression. Number of shrub species, cover of different shrub species and distance to closest forest edge were the main factors that were related to occurrence of dormice. Dormice have earlier been shown to nest in tree hollows, and thus such nests could be overlooked with our method. However, natural cavities are scarce in the habitats investigated here, and it is argued that the observed preferences for shrubby areas close to forests are real, and different shrub species are suggested to be important as sheltered and predator-safe nest sites and as food sources.
Published in
Annales Zoologici Fennici
1998, volume: 35, number: 2, pages: 115-122
SLU Authors
Berg, Åke
- Department of Conservation Biology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Department of Conservation Biology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
UKÄ Subject classification
Ecology
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/39497