Microhabitat partitioning of Apodemus flavicollis and Myodes glareolus in the sub-montane Alps: a preliminary assessment

Interspecific competition can cause partitioning in habitat use by sympatric species. This study gives a preliminary contribution to the understanding of microhabitat partitioning of Apodemus flavicollis and Myodes glareolus in sub-montane habitats. A total of 1000 trap nights in the subalpine forest in the Austrian tscher mountain showed that high- and low-tree cover, high-shrub cover, plot location in or out of the forest, and distance from the forest edge were the variables which discriminated the sites of capture of the two species. A. flavicollis seemed to be more associated with the forest edge than M. glareolus, which, in contrast, preferred areas well within the forest with high tree and shrub cover. Our results suggest that the two species show some level of partitioning according to microhabitat structure.