University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna

Foto R. Zink

Jessica S. Cornils, Franz Hölzl, Claudia Bieber, Thomas Ruf

Dormice are arboreal nocturnal rodents,

living in deciduous forests in central

Europe with a peculiar life-history:

Reproduction is synchronized and highly

dependent on energy rich seed

availability. To optimize reproductive

success dormice mate and raise litters

only in mast years of e.g. beech trees

(Fagus sylvatica).

RFID-reader is watching you: measuring activity patterns in

free-living edible dormice (Glis glis)

Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology, Department of Integrative Biology and Evolution, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Savoyenstraße 1, 1160 Vienna, Austria

Research Institute of

Wildlife Ecology University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna

Method

Capture-recapture study in the Vienna

Woods

Controls of 130 nestboxes at two

week intervals (May- October)

Installation of 40 RFID readers on nestboxes

24-hour-monitoring

2013 full mast year:

Same conditions in the whole study area

2014 low mast year:

Seperation of the study site into a control and a

supplemental feeding area (200 g of sunflower seeds in

nestboxes every two weeks)

Questions: Can RFID readers be used to measure activity of dormice in the field? Are activity levels affected by energy expediture (e.g.

the cost of lactation) and food availability (e.g. year-to-year differences or supplemental feeding)?

Conclusions

Automatic RFID readers are a suitable method to assess activity in animals inhabiting nestboxes or

treeholes

There are considerable differences in activity levels beween individuals and times of the year

It remains to be seen how activity levels (foraging times) are affected by food supply and energy demand

1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001

Inid

ivid

uals

ha

-1

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16 Juveniles

Spearman‘s rank correlation: rho = 0.965, p = 0.007

Mast: 0 0 0

Ruf, Fietz, Schlund & Bieber 2006 ©J. Cornils

©J. Cornils

©C. Bieber

©C. Bieber

© Werner Schorisch

nestboxes

control group supplemental feeding group

contact: jessica.cornils@vetmeduni.ac.at

a) Antenna installation on

nestbox entrance

b) Battery and waterproof box

with control panel

Year 2013 Preliminary results,

randomly selected individuals:

a) Male dormouse, raising activity

towards hibernation season

b) Female dormouse, red line

indicates time of parturition

c) Comparison between activity of

a male, female and juvenile

individual

(m=male; fb=female before

parturition; fa=female after

parturition; j=juvenile)

a) b)

c)

Actogram of an adult female dormouse

in 2013, activity increased prior to the

hibernation season

Year 2014 Preliminary results, randomly selected individuals:

a) Female edible dormouse, control area, only through July, also a lot of

activiy during the day

b) Female edible dormouse supplemental feeding area, spent a lot of time in

the nestbox, probably due to additional food in the nestbox

a)

b)

a) b)

© F. Hölzl ©J. Cornils ©J. Cornils

©J. Cornils

©J. Cornils