Abstract
BackgroundWith farmland afforestation becoming common policy in many European Union countries, we studied how early forest succession (from meadow to young stand) influences small mammal species composition, diversity, abundance and biomass. Despite numerous investigations into forest succession, almost no attention has been given to the small mammal community change in the early-successional forest ecosystems, starting with the pre-forest habitat and ending with stand formation and the establishment of tree dominance. We compared small mammal communities in meadows at the initial stage of regrowth (with saplings less than 10 cm in height), in young forest (5–10 years old) and more advanced forest (15–20 years) in both cases of human-induced forest succession, where the trees had been planted, and natural forest succession, where natural regrowth of meadows had occurred.ResultsThe greatest diversity of small mammal species was recorded in the meadow (H = 2.95), with a lower diversity found in the young forest (H = 2.61) and even lower in the advanced forest (H = 2.04), the last habitat being the most monodominantic. The order of species dominance from Microtus sp. (M. arvalis, M. agrestis), Myodes glareolus, Apodemus flavicollis, Sorex araneus, A. agrarius in the meadow changed to M. glareolus, S. araneus, M. arvalis, M. agrestis in the young forest and to M. glareolus, A. flavicollis, S. araneus in the advanced forest. The lowest relative abundance of small mammals was recorded in the meadow (18.19 ± 2.27 ind. Per 100 trap-days), with Microtus voles being the most abundant. Relative abundance was higher in the young forest (22.72 ± 2.25 ind. Per 100 trap-days), with Myodes glareolus being the most abundant (7.59 ± 0.96 ind. Per 100 trap-days) and at its highest in the advanced forest (23.91 ± 2.77 ind. Per 100 trap-days), again with M. glareolus being the most abundant (15.54 ± 2.35 ind. Per 100 trap-days).ConclusionsThus, our analysis suggests that that during early meadow-forest succession, the diversity of the small mammal community declines – the number of species decreases as typical meadow species are lost due to the transformation of the habitat and one or a few species became dominants. However, the relative abundance of the small mammals increases. Biological indices of small mammal communities differed between natural and human-induced meadow-forest succession.
Highlights
With farmland afforestation becoming common policy in many European Union countries, we studied how early forest succession influences small mammal species composition, diversity, abundance and biomass
Small mammal species in Lithuania have no clearly expressed cyclic fluctuations of abundance (Balčiauskas and Angelstam 1993; Balčiauskas and Juškaitis 1997; Balčiauskas 2005). For both natural forest regrowth and planted forest, investigations were conducted in three types of habitat that can be regarded as covering early forest succession: 1) meadow in the initial stage of regrowth, with trees less than 20 cm in height or shrubs, 2) former meadows covered by trees of approximately 5–10 years old with a canopy still open former meadow covered by developing birch-spruce forest, trees approximately 15–20 year old and with a closed canopy
The following species of small mammals were registered in the habitats of early forest succession: common shrew (Sorex araneus), pygmy shrew (S. minutus), water shrew (Neomys fodiens), yellow-necked mouse (Apodemus flavicollis), striped field mouse (A. agrarius), house mouse (Mus musculus), harvest mouse (Micromys minutus), bank vole (Myodes (Clethrionomys) glareolus), common vole (Microtus arvalis), root vole (M. oeconomus) and field vole (M. agrestis)
Summary
With farmland afforestation becoming common policy in many European Union countries, we studied how early forest succession (from meadow to young stand) influences small mammal species composition, diversity, abundance and biomass. Forests may develop in localities of former meadows as a process of Natural Succession (hereafter NS) when abandoned arable land and/or hay meadows are recolonized by shrubs and eventually become forests This has become common in Lithuania and other Baltic countries since 1990, where following land reform, less intensive farming has led to a decrease in agricultural areas (Aleknavičius and Aleknavičius 2010) and 4000– 5000 ha of abandoned land has seen natural forest regrowth on an annual basis (Lithuanian Forest Cover Enlargement Programme 2002). Forest and newly afforested land occupies 33.3% of the territory of the country (Butkus et al 2013)
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