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Indirect Human Influences in Fear Landscapes: Varying Effects of Moonlight on Small Mammal Activity along Man-Made Gradients of Vegetation Structure

Risk of predation is one of the main constraints of small mammal distribution and foraging activity. Aside from numerical effects on population size due to the presence and abundance of predators, indirect cues, such as vegetation structure and moonlight, determine patterns of activity and microhabi...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Pasquet, Alba, Torre, Ignasi, Díaz, Mario
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10053441/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36983836
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life13030681
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author Pasquet, Alba
Torre, Ignasi
Díaz, Mario
author_facet Pasquet, Alba
Torre, Ignasi
Díaz, Mario
author_sort Pasquet, Alba
collection PubMed
description Risk of predation is one of the main constraints of small mammal distribution and foraging activity. Aside from numerical effects on population size due to the presence and abundance of predators, indirect cues, such as vegetation structure and moonlight, determine patterns of activity and microhabitat use by small mammals. Indirect cues are expected to interact, as shading provided by vegetation can suppress the effects of changing moonlight. We analyzed the effects of moonlight levels on the activity patterns of three common small mammal species in Mediterranean habitats, and tested whether moonlight effects were modulated by shadowing associated with the development of tall vegetation due to spontaneous afforestation following land abandonment. A. sylvaticus, a strictly nocturnal species, decreased activity under moonlight with no interactive effects of vegetation cover. C. russula showed no activity change with moonlight levels and M. spretus increased activity, although activity in both species was mostly determined by vegetation cover, that favored it. The effects of moonlight on small mammal activity were not homogeneous among species, nor were the interactive effects of man-made gradients of habitat structure, a fact that will produce community changes along vegetation gradients mediated by varying fear landscapes.
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spelling pubmed-100534412023-03-30 Indirect Human Influences in Fear Landscapes: Varying Effects of Moonlight on Small Mammal Activity along Man-Made Gradients of Vegetation Structure Pasquet, Alba Torre, Ignasi Díaz, Mario Life (Basel) Article Risk of predation is one of the main constraints of small mammal distribution and foraging activity. Aside from numerical effects on population size due to the presence and abundance of predators, indirect cues, such as vegetation structure and moonlight, determine patterns of activity and microhabitat use by small mammals. Indirect cues are expected to interact, as shading provided by vegetation can suppress the effects of changing moonlight. We analyzed the effects of moonlight levels on the activity patterns of three common small mammal species in Mediterranean habitats, and tested whether moonlight effects were modulated by shadowing associated with the development of tall vegetation due to spontaneous afforestation following land abandonment. A. sylvaticus, a strictly nocturnal species, decreased activity under moonlight with no interactive effects of vegetation cover. C. russula showed no activity change with moonlight levels and M. spretus increased activity, although activity in both species was mostly determined by vegetation cover, that favored it. The effects of moonlight on small mammal activity were not homogeneous among species, nor were the interactive effects of man-made gradients of habitat structure, a fact that will produce community changes along vegetation gradients mediated by varying fear landscapes. MDPI 2023-03-02 /pmc/articles/PMC10053441/ /pubmed/36983836 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life13030681 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Pasquet, Alba
Torre, Ignasi
Díaz, Mario
Indirect Human Influences in Fear Landscapes: Varying Effects of Moonlight on Small Mammal Activity along Man-Made Gradients of Vegetation Structure
title Indirect Human Influences in Fear Landscapes: Varying Effects of Moonlight on Small Mammal Activity along Man-Made Gradients of Vegetation Structure
title_full Indirect Human Influences in Fear Landscapes: Varying Effects of Moonlight on Small Mammal Activity along Man-Made Gradients of Vegetation Structure
title_fullStr Indirect Human Influences in Fear Landscapes: Varying Effects of Moonlight on Small Mammal Activity along Man-Made Gradients of Vegetation Structure
title_full_unstemmed Indirect Human Influences in Fear Landscapes: Varying Effects of Moonlight on Small Mammal Activity along Man-Made Gradients of Vegetation Structure
title_short Indirect Human Influences in Fear Landscapes: Varying Effects of Moonlight on Small Mammal Activity along Man-Made Gradients of Vegetation Structure
title_sort indirect human influences in fear landscapes: varying effects of moonlight on small mammal activity along man-made gradients of vegetation structure
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10053441/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36983836
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life13030681
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