Habitat use by singing voles and tundra voles in the southern Yukon.

Abstract

We investigated how far competitive interactions influence the use of habitats and relative abundance of two species of Microtus in the southwestern Yukon. We worked in the ecotone between alpine tundra and subalpine shrub tundra where populations of singing voles (Microtus miurus) and tundra voles (M. oeconomus) overlap little.We removed tundra voles from shrub tundra on one live-trapping area to look at the effect on the contiguous population of singing voles in alpine tundra. The removal of tundra voles did not affect the distribution or relative abundance of singing voles. The spatial distribution of these species and their movements within habitats suggest that they have a strong habitat preference.Populations of small mammals in the area are extremely dynamic and the relative importance of competitive interactions may change as density varies. At present we have no evidence that competition affects habitat use in M. miurus.