Abstract
Most small rodent populations in the world have fascinating population dynamics. In the northern hemisphere, voles and lemmings tend to show population cycles with regular fluctuations in numbers. In the southern hemisphere, small rodents tend to have large amplitude outbreaks with less regular intervals. In the light of vast research and debate over almost a century, we here discuss the driving forces of these different rodent population dynamics. We highlight ten questions directly related to the various characteristics of relevant populations and ecosystems that still need to be answered. This overview is not intended as a complete list of questions but rather focuses on the most important issues that are essential for understanding the generality of small rodent population dynamics.
Highlights
Populations of small rodents have fascinated ecologists all over the world due to their extreme eruptive dynamics, or regular periodic fluctuations known as multiannual population cycles
Population cycles have fuelled decades of research since Charles Elton (1924, 1942), who described this phenomenon based on historical data in northwest Europe and Canada (Lindström et al 2001; Myers 2018)
Voles and lemmings in the northern hemisphere, and in Northern Europe, tend to have regular population fluctuations manifesting as cycles with a peak every 3–5 years
Summary
Populations of small rodents have fascinated ecologists all over the world due to their extreme eruptive dynamics, or regular periodic fluctuations known as multiannual population cycles. In the following we discuss the mechanisms shaping population dynamics of voles and lemmings, for which four cycle phases, i.e. increase, peak, crash and low phase, can typically be identified.
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