Herbicide application affects microhabitat use by arable wood mice (Apodemus sylvaticus).

Abstract

I. This paper examines the consequences to wood mice of selectively reducing the application of herbicides to the outer 6 m of cereal crops ('conservation headlands'). Conservation headlands are known to benefit gamebird populations, via an increase in the abundance of those invertebrates which are the preferred food of gamebird chicks, and also to benefit a variety of arable plant and animal species.
2. Since arable-dwelling wood mice feed on many of the plant and animal species known to increase from conservation headlands, we hypothesized that conservation headlands would increase the natural food available to wood mice and thereby affect their behaviour.
3. To test this hypothesis the application of herbicides onto the headlands of winter wheat fields was manipulated experimentally at two study sites over 3 years. The effects on the movement patterns of 32 wood mice were investigated by intensive radio-tracking.
4. Reduced application of herbicides in small (I0 x 20 m) experimental plots along the field headland produced increases in both floral and invertebrate abundance.
5. Wood mice actively sought those headland plots with experimentally elevated food abundance, utilizing reduced-spray plots in preference to both normally sprayed field headlands and the mid-field area.