Food of the bank vole in northern Finnish spruce forests

Abstract

The diet of the bank vole, Clethrionomys glareolus (Schreber, 1780) in spruce forests in northern and central Finland is found to consist typically of small amounts of seeds (0.5-2.0% of the stomach contents at different seasons), berries (0.1-4.6%) and animal material (0.2-2.3%) and a high percentage of beared lichens, Alectoria spp. and Bryoria spp., at all seasons (27.9-53.7%). The tree lichens replace the seeds of deciduous trees consumed in many forests further south.