Population increase and synurbization of the yellow-necked mouse Apodemus flavicollis in some wooded areas of Warsaw agg
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Population increase and synurbization of the yellow-necked mouse Apodemus flavicollis in some wooded areas of Warsaw agglomeration, Poland, in the years 1983–2018 Grzegorz Lesiński 1 & Jakub Gryz 2 & Dagny Krauze-Gryz 3 & Przemysław Stolarz 4
# The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Studies on the contribution of the yellow-necked mouse Apodemus flavicollis and of other vertebrates to the diet of the tawny owl Strix aluco were carried out in Warsaw (central Poland) in the years 1983–2018. The frequency of the yellow-necked mouse in owl pellets increased at the break of the 20th and 21st centuries, particularly in some woodlands in the peri-urban area of the agglomeration. In the second half of the first decade of the twenty-first century, this mouse species colonised a park in the city centre. The yellow-necked mouse may become an important competitor for the synurbic population of the striped field mouse Apodemus agrarius. Keywords Urban environment . City park . Suburban forest . Synurbization . Terrestrial rodents . Central Europe
Introduction Studies on small terrestrial mammals inhabiting urban areas have been carried out in various regions of the world (Andrzejewski et al. 1978; Dickman and Doncaster 1987; Goszczyński et al. 1993; Chernousova 1996; Baker et al. 2003; Mahan and O’Connel 2005; Gryz et al. 2008; Cavia et al. 2009; Garden et al. 2010; Gomes et al. 2011; Khlyap et al. 2012; Łopucki et al. 2013; Klimant et al. 2017; Łopucki and Kitowski 2017). These groups of animals, which have relatively low dispersal abilities, find it difficult to penetrate areas strongly modified by human activity. Animals are particularly threatened by habitat fragmentation (Angold et al. 2006; Vergnes et al. 2013; Gomes et al. 2011; Gryz et al. 2017b) and road mortality (Hodson 1960; Bąkowski and Kozakiewicz 1988; Orłowski and Nowak 2006;
* Grzegorz Lesiński [email protected] 1
Faculty of Animal Sciences, Warsaw University of Life Sciences – SGGW, Ciszewskiego 8, 02-786 Warsaw, Poland
2
Department of Forest Ecology, Forest Research Institute, Sękocin Stary, Braci Leśnej 3, 05-090 Raszyn, Poland
3
Department of Forest Zoology and Wildlife Management, Warsaw University of Life Sciences – SGGW, Nowoursynowska 159C, 02-787 Warsaw, Poland
4
Centre of Human Ecology, Kościuszki 24, 05-075 Warsaw, Poland
Gryz and Krauze 2008). Therefore, the centres of large urban agglomerations host few small mammal species (Goszczyński et al. 1993; McKinney 2008; Buckmaster et al. 2010). Moreover, native species are more sensitive to urbanization than alien species (Cavia et al. 2009). The yellow-necked mouse Apodemus flavicollis (Melchior, 1834), widespread in most parts of Europe and the Middle East (Amori et al. 2016), is a species associated with woodlands and mature forests (Pucek et al. 1993, Mazurkiewicz and Rajska-Jurgiel 1998; Marsh and Harris 2000; Juškaitis 2002), where it often dominates the terrestrial rodent communities (Pucek et al. 1993; Mazurkiewicz and Rajska-Jurgiel 1998), but prefers forest edges (Montgomery 1999; Hille and Mort
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