Vole

For other uses, see Vole (disambiguation).

Not to be confused with Mole (animal).

Vole
The bank vole (Myodes glareolus) lives in woodland areas in Europe and Asia.
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Rodentia
Family:	Cricetidae
Subfamily:	Arvicolinae
Groups included
Arvicolini Ellobiusini – mole voles Myodini Phenacomyini – tree and heather voles Pliomyini Prometheomyini
Cladistically included but traditionally excluded taxa
Dicrostonychini - collared lemmings Lagurini Lemmini Ondatrini - muskrats

Voles are small rodents that are relatives of lemmings and hamsters, but with a stouter body; a longer, hairy tail; a slightly rounder head; smaller eyes and ears; and differently formed molars (high-crowned with angular cusps instead of low-crowned with rounded cusps). They are sometimes known as meadow mice or field mice.

Vole species form the subfamily Arvicolinae with the lemmings and the muskrats. There are approximately 155 different vole species.

Description

Voles are small rodents that grow to 8–23 cm (3–9 in), depending on the species. Females can have five to ten litters per year, though with an average lifespan of three months and requiring one month to adulthood, two litters is the norm.^[1] Gestation lasts for three weeks and the young voles reach sexual maturity in a month. As a result of this biological exponential growth, vole populations can grow very large within a short time. One mating pair can produce 100 offspring in a year.

Voles outwardly resemble several other small animals. Moles, gophers, mice, rats and even shrews have similar characteristics and behavioral tendencies.

Voles thrive on small plants yet, like shrews, they will eat dead animals and, like mice and rats, they can live on almost any nut or fruit. In addition, voles target plants more than most other small animals, making their presence evident. Voles readily girdle small trees and ground cover much like a porcupine. This girdling can easily kill young plants and is not healthy for trees and other shrubs.

Voles often eat succulent root systems and burrow under plants and eat away until the plant is dead. Bulbs are another favorite target for voles; their excellent burrowing and tunnelling skills give them access to sensitive areas without clear or early warning. The presence of large numbers of voles is often identifiable only after they have destroyed a number of plants. However, like other burrowing rodents, they also play beneficial roles, including dispersing nutrients throughout the upper soil layers.^[2]

Predators

Many predators eat voles, including martens, owls, hawks, falcons, coyotes, bobcats,^[3] foxes,^[4] raccoons, squirrels, snakes, weasels, domestic cats and lynxes. Vole bones are often found in the pellets of the short-eared owl,^[5] the northern spotted owl,^[6] the saw-whet owl,^[7] the barn owl, the great gray owl,^[8] and the northern pygmy owl.^{[9][10][11][12]} In the summer of 2024, biologists and other scientists at UC Davis first observed California ground squirrels actively hunting voles.^[13]

Lifespan

Releasing water voles in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales

The average lifespan for smaller species of vole is three to six months, and they rarely live longer than 12 months. Larger species, such as the European water vole, live longer and usually die during their second, or rarely their third, winter. As many as 88% of voles are estimated to die within the first month of life.^[14]

Genetics and sexual behavior

The prairie vole is a notable animal model for its monogamous social fidelity, since the male is usually socially faithful to the female, and shares in the raising of pups. The woodland vole is also usually monogamous. Another species from the same genus, the meadow vole, has promiscuously mating males, and scientists have changed adult male meadow voles' behavior to resemble that of prairie voles in experiments in which a viral vector was used to increase a single gene's expression within a particular brain region.^[15]

The behavior is influenced by the number of repetitions of a particular string of microsatellite DNA. Male prairie voles with the longest DNA strings spend more time with their mates and pups than male prairie voles with shorter strings.^[16] However, other scientists have disputed the gene's relationship to monogamy, and cast doubt on whether the human version plays an analogous role.^[17] Physiologically, pair-bonding behavior has been shown to be connected to vasopressin, dopamine, and oxytocin levels, with the genetic influence apparently arising via the number of receptors for these substances in the brain; the pair-bonding behavior has also been shown in experiments to be strongly modifiable by administering some of these substances directly.

Voles have a number of unusual chromosomal traits. Species have been found with 17 to 64 chromosomes. In some species, males and females have different chromosome numbers, a trait unusual in mammals, though it is seen in other organisms. Additionally, genetic material typically found on the Y chromosome has been found in both males and females in at least one species. In another species, the X chromosome contains 20% of the genome. All of these variations result in very little physical aberration; most vole species are virtually indistinguishable.^[18] In one species, the creeping vole Microtus oregoni, it was discovered the Y chromosome has been lost entirely; the male-determining chromosome is actually a second X that is largely identical to the female X, and both the maternally inherited and male-specific sex chromosomes carry vestiges of the ancestral Y. This is quite unusual in mammals, as the XY system is fairly stable across a number of mammal species.^[19]

Mating system

Voles may be either monogamous or polygamous, which leads to differing patterns of mate choice and parental care. Environmental conditions play a large part in dictating which system is active in a given population. Voles live in colonies due to the young remaining in the family group for relatively long periods.^[20] In the genus Microtus, monogamy is preferred when resources are spatially homogeneous and population densities are low; where the opposites of both conditions are realized, polygamous tendencies arise.^[21] Vole mating systems are also sensitive to the operational sex ratio and tend toward monogamy when males and females are present in equal numbers. Where one sex is more numerous than the other, polygamy is more likely.^[22] However the most marked effect on mating system is population density and these effects can take place both inter and intra-specifically.^[21]

Male voles are territorial and tend to include territories of several female voles when possible. Under these conditions polygyny exists and males offer little parental care.^[23] Males mark and aggressively defend their territories since females prefer males with the most recent marking in a given area.^[24]

Voles prefer familiar mates through olfactory sensory exploitation. Monogamous voles prefer males who have yet to mate, while non-monogamous voles do not.^[25] Mate preference in voles develops through cohabitation in as little as 24 hours.^[24] This drives young male voles to show non-limiting preference toward female siblings. This is not inclusive to females' preference for males which may help to explain the absence of interbreeding indicators.^{[clarification needed]}

Although females show little territoriality, under pair bonding conditions they tend to show aggression toward other female voles.^[25] This behavior is flexible as some Microtus females share dens during the winter months, perhaps to conserve heat and energy.^[26] Populations which are monogamous show relatively minor size differences between genders compared with those using polygamous systems.^[27]

The grey-sided vole (Myodes rufocanus) exhibits male-biased dispersal as a means of avoiding incestuous matings.^[28] Among those matings that involve inbreeding, the number of weaned juveniles in litters is significantly fewer than that from noninbred litters, due to inbreeding depression.

Brandt's vole (Lasiopodomys brandtii) lives in groups that mainly consist of close relatives. However, they show no sign of inbreeding.^[29] The mating system of these voles involves a type of polygyny for males and extra-group polyandry for females. This system increases the frequency of mating among distantly related individuals, and is achieved mainly by dispersal during the mating season.^[29] Such a strategy is likely an adaptation to avoid the inbreeding depression that would be caused by expression of deleterious recessive alleles if close relatives mated.

Empathy and consolation

A 2016 study into the behavior of voles, Microtus ochrogaster specifically, found that voles comfort each other when mistreated, spending more time grooming a mistreated vole. Voles that were not mistreated had levels of stress hormones that were similar to the voles that had been mistreated, suggesting that the voles were capable of empathizing with each other. This was further proven by blocking the vole's receptors for oxytocin, a hormone involved in empathy. When the oxytocin receptors were blocked this behavior stopped.^[30]

This type of empathetic behavior has previously been thought to occur only in animals with advanced cognition such as humans, apes, and elephants.

Vole clock

Main article: Vole clock

The vole clock is a method of dating archaeological strata using vole teeth.^[31]

Classification

• Order Rodentia
  • Superfamily Muroidea
    • Family Cricetidae
      • Subfamily Arvicolinae (in part)
        • Tribe Arvicolini
          • Genus Arvicola – water voles
          • Genus Blanfordimys – Afghan vole and Bucharian vole
          • Genus Chionomys – snow voles
          • Genus Lasiopodomys
          • Genus Lemmiscus – sagebrush vole
          • Genus Microtus – voles
          • Genus Neodon – mountain voles
          • Genus Phaiomys
          • Genus Proedromys – Duke of Bedford's vole
          • Genus Volemys
        • Tribe Ellobiusini – mole voles
          • Genus Ellobius – mole voles
        • Tribe Clethrionomyini
          • Genus Alticola – voles from Central Asia
          • Genus Caryomys
          • Genus Eothenomys – voles from East Asia
          • Genus Hyperacrius – voles from India (True's vole), Afghanistan and Pakistan (Murree's vole)
          • Genus Craseomys – some red-backed voles
          • Genus Clethrionomys - other red-backed voles
        • Tribe Phenacomyini
          • Genus Arborimus – tree voles
          • Genus Phenacomys – heather voles
        • Tribe Pliomyini
          • Genus Dinaromys – voles from the Dinaric Alps

References

1. "Vole Lifespan and Life Cycle". INSECT COP. 2019-05-13. Retrieved 2022-03-25.
2. Dickman, Chris R. "Rodent–Ecosystem Relationships: a Review" in Singleton G, Hinds L, Leirs H, Zhang Z. ed. 1999. "Ecologically-based management of rodent pests". ACIAR Monograph No. 59, 494p Retrieved on 2018-03-28
3. "Bobcats in Connecticut". CT.gov - Connecticut's Official State Website. Retrieved 2020-12-11. In Connecticut, bobcats prey on cottontail rabbits, woodchucks, squirrels, chipmunks, mice, voles, white-tailed deer, birds, and, to a much lesser extent, insects and reptiles.
4. O'Mahony, Declan; Lambin, Xavier; MacKinnon, James L.; Coles, Chris F. (1999). "Fox predation on cyclic field vole populations in Britain". Ecography. 22 (5): 575–581. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0587.1999.tb01287.x. ISSN 1600-0587. Field voles and roe deer Capreolus capreolus L. were the two main prey species in the diet of the red fox.
5. Blem, C. R.; Blem, L. B.; Felix, Joel H.; Holt, D. W. (1993). "Estimation of Body Mass of Voles from Crania in Short-Eared Owl Pellets". The American Midland Naturalist. 129 (2): 282–287. doi:10.2307/2426509. ISSN 0003-0031. JSTOR 2426509. Voles comprised more than 95% of the diet of short-eared owls (Asio flammeus) breeding in western Montana.
6. Marks-Fife, Chad A.; Forsman, Eric D.; Dugger, Katie M. (2020). "Age Distribution of Red Tree Voles in Northern Spotted Owl Pellets Estimated from Molar Tooth Development". Northwest Science. 93 (3–4): 193–208. doi:10.3955/046.093.0304. ISSN 0029-344X. S2CID 210932920. We used the regression to estimate the age distribution of 1,703 red tree voles found in northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) pellets collected in western Oregon during 1970–2009.
7. "Northern Saw-whet Owl Life History, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology". www.allaboutbirds.org. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
8. Bull, Evelyn L.; Henjum, Mark G. (1990). Ecology of the Great Gray Owl (PDF). United States Department of Agriculture. p. 3. Diet by biomass consisted mainly of northern pocket gophers (67 percent) and voles (27 percent).
9. Holt, Denver W.; Leroux, Leslie A. (1996). "Diets of Northern Pygmy-Owls and Northern Saw-Whet Owls in West-Central Montana". The Wilson Bulletin. 108 (1): 123–128. ISSN 0043-5643. JSTOR 4163644. One hundred ninety-four prey items were recorded from 31 Northern Pygmy-Owls. Thirteen bird and four mammal species were eaten (see Table I for list and scientific names of prey items). Mammals represented 60.8% of the prey and birds at least 36.6%. Microtus voles represented 53.6% of the total prey eaten and 88.1% of the mammals eaten (Table 1)
10. Holt, Denver W.; Bitter, Colleen (2007). "Barred Owl Winter Diet and Pellet Dimensions in Western Montana". Northwestern Naturalist. 88 (1): 7–11. doi:10.1898/1051-1733(2007)88[7:BOWDAP]2.0.CO;2. ISSN 1051-1733. JSTOR 4501977. S2CID 86350479. Of the small mammals, voles (Microtus) were clearly the most numerous prey group, representing 97.6% of all prey.
11. naomim (2017-06-21). "Dissecting an owl pellet". whatnaomididnext. Retrieved 2020-12-11. I was able to identify that two sets of lower jaw bones appeared to be from a bank vole and one set from a field vole.
12. "Owl pellet contents: small mammal bone identification guide". The Barn Owl Trust. Retrieved 2020-12-11. Photos of the skull and jaw bones of a Wood Mouse; House Mouse; Field Vole; Common Shrew; Brown Rat, Bank Vole and Pygmy Shrew – the main prey of wild Barn Owls in the UK.
13. "California squirrels are eating another rodent for the first time, new study finds".
14. Daar, Sheila (December 1997). "How to Control Voles in Your Garden". VegetableGardener.com. Taunton Press. Retrieved 14 October 2011.
15. Lim, Miranda M.; Wang, Zuoxin; Olazábal, Daniel E.; Ren, Xianghui; Terwilliger, Ernest F.; Young, Larry J. (2004). "Enhanced partner preference in a promiscuous species by manipulating the expression of a single gene". Nature. 429 (6993): 754–7. Bibcode:2004Natur.429..754L. doi:10.1038/nature02539. PMID 15201909. S2CID 4340500. Referenced in Graham, Sarah (2004-06-17). "Gene Linked to Lasting Love in Voles". Scientific American.
16. Hammock, E. A. D.; Young, LJ (2005). "Microsatellite Instability Generates Diversity in Brain and Sociobehavioral Traits". Science. 308 (5728): 1630–4. Bibcode:2005Sci...308.1630H. doi:10.1126/science.1111427. PMID 15947188. S2CID 18899853. Summarized in Wade, Nicholas (2005-06-10). "DNA of Voles May Hint at Why Some Fathers Shirk Duties". The New York Times. Retrieved November 17, 2017.
17. Fink, S. (2006). "Mammalian monogamy is not controlled by a single gene". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 103 (29): 10956–10960. Bibcode:2006PNAS..10310956F. doi:10.1073/pnas.0602380103. PMC 1544156. PMID 16832060.
18. DeWoody, J. Andrew; Triant, Deb; Main, Douglas M. (2006-09-14). "Rodent's bizarre traits deepen mystery of genetics, evolution". Purdue.edu. Purdue University. Retrieved February 25, 2007.
19. Couger, Matthew B.; Roy, Scott W.; Anderson, Noelle; Gozashti, Landen; Pirro, Stacy; Millward, Lindsay S.; Kim, Michelle; Kilburn, Duncan; Liu, Kelvin J.; Wilson, Todd M.; Epps, Clinton W.; Dizney, Laurie; Ruedas, Luis A.; Campbell, Polly (7 May 2021). "Sex chromosome transformation and the origin of a male-specific X chromosome in the creeping vole". Science. 372 (6542): 592–600. Bibcode:2021Sci...372..592C. doi:10.1126/science.abg7019. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 33958470. S2CID 233872862.
20. Potapov, M.; Zadubrovskaya, I.; Zabudrovskii, P.; Potapova, O.; Eviskov, V. (2011). "Mating Systems in the Steppe Lemming (Lagurus lagurus) and Narrow-Skulled Vole (Microtus gregalis) from the Northern Kulunda Steppe". Russian Journal of Ecology. 43 (1): 40–44. doi:10.1134/S1067413612010109. S2CID 16261654.
21. Streatfeild, C.; Mabry, K.; Keane, B.; Crist, T.; Solomon, N. (2011). "Intraspecific Variability in the Social and Genetic Mating System of Prairie Voles, Microtus ochrogaster". Animal Behaviour. 82 (6): 1387–1398. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.09.023. S2CID 53257008.
22. Zhang, J.; Zhang, Z. (2003). "Influence of Operational Sex Ratio and Density on the Copulatory Behaviour and Mating System of Brandt's Vole Microtus brandt". Acta Theriologica. 48 (3): 335–346. doi:10.1007/BF03194173. S2CID 42697613.
23. Ostfeld, R. (1986). "Territoriality and Mating System of California Voles". Journal of Animal Ecology. 55 (2): 691–706. Bibcode:1986JAnEc..55..691O. doi:10.2307/4748. JSTOR 4748.
24. Parker, K.; Phillips, K.; Lee, T. (2001). "Development of Selective Partner Preferences in Captive Male and Female Meadow Voles, Microtus pennsylvanicus". Animal Behaviour. 61 (6): 1217–1226. doi:10.1006/anbe.2000.1707. S2CID 36508541.
25. Salo, A.; Dewsbury, D. (1995). "Three Experiments on Mate Choice in Meadow Voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus)". Journal of Comparative Psychology. 109 (1): 42–46. doi:10.1037/0735-7036.109.1.42. PMID 7705059.
26. Lambin, X.; Krebs, C.; Scott, B. (1992). "Spacing Systems of the Tundra Vole (Microtus oeconomus) During the Breeding Season in Canada's Western Arctic". Canadian Journal of Zoology. 70 (10): 2068–2072. doi:10.1139/z92-278.
27. Lee, C.; Chui, C.; Lin, L.; Lin, Y. (2014). "Partner Preference and Mating System of the Taiwan Field Vole (Microtus kikuchii)". Taiwania. 59 (2): 127–138. doi:10.6165/tai.2014.59.127.
28. Ishibashi Y, Saitoh T (2008). "Role of male-biased dispersal in inbreeding avoidance in the grey-sided vole (Myodes rufocanus)". Mol. Ecol. 17 (22): 4887–96. Bibcode:2008MolEc..17.4887I. doi:10.1111/j.1365-294X.2008.03969.x. PMID 19140979. S2CID 44992920.
29. Liu XH, Yue LF, Wang da W, Li N, Cong L (2013). "Inbreeding avoidance drives consistent variation of fine-scale genetic structure caused by dispersal in the seasonal mating system of Brandt's voles". PLOS ONE. 8 (3): e58101. Bibcode:2013PLoSO...858101L. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0058101. PMC 3597616. PMID 23516435.
30. "Animal behaviour: Voles console stressed friends". Nature. 529 (7587): 441. 2016-01-28. Bibcode:2016Natur.529T.441.. doi:10.1038/529441d. ISSN 0028-0836.
31. Currant, Andy (Natural History Museum, London) (2000). "2000 series: Elveden, Suffolk". Time Team. Channel 4. Archived from the original on 2008-01-17. Retrieved 31 May 2014.

External links

• "Genetic Code for Monogamy"—National Geographic video on YouTube