The home-range concept in rodents revised

Abstract

R. 2002. The home-range concept in rodents revised. [In: Theriology at the turn of a new century. J. Gliwicz, ed]. Acta Theriologica 47, Suppl. 1: 81-101.The paradigm regarding the ecology of populations of small rodents has had several basic theses: (1) the individual has a home range or is a migrant; (2) factors regulating population parameters (including density) include spatio-social relations between individuals; and (3) the phenomena observed on trial plots with a system of live traps are the same as those beyond the plot. However, the home-range concept in small rodents is open to criticism in that: (1) observations point to much greater ranges of spatial activity in these animals than has been shown hitherto in plot-based studies with systems of live traps; (2) there is great variability in the directions and extent of the spatial activity of small rodents; (3) observations suggest that what is regarded as the area of spatial activity of an individual has limited information content since the "tenant" makes use of the area via tracks and trails along which it moves. Transfers of studies on odour-related information in small rodents from the laboratory to natural populations confirm the significance of odours in the life of these animals and in integrating their populations. It is possible that the need to leave information in the environment (informational conditioning) provokes considerable locomotory and spatial activity in small rodents. Live traps with bait (food) limit the spatial activity of animals. The set of traps in which an individual is caught thus represents not home range but trap range. A new paradigm for the ecology of small rodents should comprise the propositions that: (1) the function of olfactory information is the integration of a population into an ecological system; (2) the maintenance of odour-mediated conditioning in the environment is one of the reasons for locomotor and spatial activity; (3) the patchy distribution of food in the environment (including study plots with traps) gives rise to changes in the use made of space by individuals; (4) the phenomena observed on research plots with live traps containing bait are different to those ongoing at the same time outside these areas. Such a paradigm requires reinterpretation of research results obtained hitherto as well as the application of new research methods.

Home range, range overlap, and site fidelity of introduced Siberian chipmunks in a suburban French forest

“…Trap spacing, bait food, grid size, shape and placement, or even trap shy and trap happy behavior may affect estimates (Andrzejewski 2002;Jewell 1966). In addition, obtaining sufficient locations per individual to assess home range size is often difficult.…”

Differential foraging in presence of predator and conspecific odors in bank voles: a field enclosure study

“…Two observations are worth mentioning and are probably related to the outdoor enclosure conditions: First, as male bank voles have larger home ranges and are more active outside their nests than females (Paillat and Butet 1996;Andrzejewski 2002), we expected males to visit the feeders more frequently than females, but this frequency did not differ significantly between sexes. Second, average daily food consumption per individual measured in the enclosure, was much less (below 1 g whatever the odor present in the feeder) than what we observed in laboratory conditions (2.5 g).…”

Eco-HAB as a fully automated and ecologically relevant assessment of social impairments in mouse models of autism

“…The Eco-HAB system and its testing protocols take into account the innate murine tendency to avoid open areas and inhabit enclosed spaces, from which they regularly explore large territories, mostly at night (Andrzejewski, 2002; Dell'Omo et al, 2000, 1998). Eco-HAB (Figure 1 and Video 1) consists of four housing compartments, occupying four corners of a larger square, bridged by tube-shaped corridors.…”

“…The two other compartments have similar designs except that they contain no food or water and one of the corners is equipped with an impassable, transparent, and perforated partition behind which an olfactory stimulus may be presented. Acknowledging the natural tendency of mice to live in family-based groups having many members (Andrzejewski, 2002), Eco-HAB is designed for testing littermate cohorts of up to 12 subjects. Animals are tracked individually by subcutaneously injected microtransponders that emit a unique identification code when mice pass under RFID antennas placed on both ends of each corridor.…”

“…This is a fully automated, open-source system based on RFID technology and inspired by the results of ethological field studies in mice (Dell'omo et al, 1998, 2000; Lopucki and Szymroszczyk, 2003; Andrzejewski, 2002; Lewejohann et al, 2004; Lopucki, 2007; Daan et al, 2011; von Merten et al, 2014; Chalfin et al, 2014). Group-housed animals equipped with RFID tags live in a spacious, four-compartment apparatus with shadowed areas and narrow tunnels resembling natural burrows.…”