The prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster), a highly social species, offers a unique opportunity to examine the effects of parent-pup separation in a biparental family system similar to humans. We hypothesized that 1) repeated separation from pups affects parental behavior and emotionality in parents, and 2) neonatal parental separation affects emotional and physiological development in pups, and thus induces altered adult parental, emotional, and social behaviors. During postnatal day (PND) 1-10, pups were removed from their parents for 0, 15, or 360 min and housed either individually or with siblings. Unhandled controls experienced only daily lid opening. Tests for parental responsiveness and emotionality were conducted on PND11 for parents and PND90-92 for their offspring. Emotionality tests included the elevated plus maze, open field, and forced swim tests. Starting at PND150, half of each litter was paired with an opposite-sex vole for 24 hours and tested for partner preference. Additionally, behavioral response to stress was measured in all animals 0, 30, or 60 min after exposure to a forced swim. Generally, the behavior of the parents and adult offspring was influenced by daily handling, the length of the separation, and presence of siblings. Parental behaviors in parents did not differ among groups, while their anxiety- and depression-like behaviors were influenced by pup separation. For the adult offspring, separation treatment altered parental behavior, emotionality, partner preference, and stress response. Our results demonstrated that parent-pup separation affects emotional and social behaviors in prairie vole parents and adult offspring.

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The Mississippi Alluvial Valley (MAV) has undergone losses of bottomland hardwood forests due to agricultural conversion. Hardwood establishment on marginal croplands has been proposed to mitigate effects of deforestation and related loss of carbon-capture potential. However, a possible concern with reforestation is low seedling survival from mammalian herbivory. I surveyed two afforested fields in the MAV of northwest Mississippi to assess damage and mortality from four herbivores on nine species of hardwood seedlings (n = 868). Percentage survival of seedlings was 35%. Mortality of seedlings caused by herbivores was: hispid cotton rat (Sigmodon hispidus; 6.45%), rabbit ((Sylvilagus spp.; 1.95%), pine vole (Microtus pinetorum; 2.99%), and white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginiana; 0.69%). Of surviving seedlings (n = 316), 10.82% were damaged by cotton rats, pine vole (2.99%), rabbit (8.06%), and deer (7.02%). Green ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica), water oak (Quercus nigra), and Nuttall oak (Quercus nuttallii) had greatest survival.

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The aim of this study was investigate the development of behaviour of common vole in usually used personality test - Open Field test. This study also used a new behavioural approach ? behavioural reaction norms - to investigate the relationship among personality traits, behavioural plasticity and body weight and chosen social characteristic. There were found the effects of adult body weight and litter size on individual behavioural plasticity and also the negative correlation between personality traits and behavioural plasticity, signaling the different level of habituation dependent on personality traits.

The aim of this study was to investigate the personality of bank vole using recaptures. Some behavioural types were determined (for example shy and bold) and influence of some factors on animal personality was defined (especially the daytime). The rate of repeatability of behaviour was also specified and the dependence of behaviour change on number of days between two captures was defined. Last, two types of tests used for animal personality were compared, indicating the differences between them.

The aim of this thesis was to empirically examine one of the theories regarding the laws of intraspecific variability in animal behavior, which assumes that differences in behavior are directly related to individual differences in the rate of growth. One of our most common rodents, common vole (Microtus arvalis) was chosen as a model species, mainly because lots of previous studies on this species have demonstrated, among other things, presence of consistent differences in behavior.

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A population is never constant, but changes over time, and a connection is often found in population changes between predator and prey. A population increase in one can affect the other species positively or negatively. An increase in wood voles (Clehtrinomys glareolus) and field voles (Microtus agrestis) provides more food for the red fox (Vulpes vulpes), which in turn gets a better chance to reproduce. When the fox then increases in number, the vole decreases because the fox hunts and eats more food. Cycles are formed in the ups and downs of the populations which are followed. The purpose of this study is to see if a large vole population increases the fox's reproductive success in subsequent years and if a cycle interval with displacement between voles and foxes exists with a clear interval. Grimsö Research Station has contributed its data on the populations from the year 1973 until the year 2023. Lotka-Volterra's equations for predator-prey interactions were used and to see if a clear cycle interval between the populations existed. The result shows that the Lotka-Volterra equation does not give any clear shifts between the peaks and valleys of the populations as we thought before the test. In contrast, an autocorrelation analysis shows that the fox appears to follow the typical pattern of population cycles while the vole does not. A cross-correlation strengthens the result as the result is highest at a minimal time shift. A non-parametric correlation analysis finally shows that the correlation is strongly positive but not significant. / En population är aldrig konstant utan förändras över tid och ofta återfinns ett samband i populationsförändringar mellan predator och bytesdjur. En populationsökning hos den ena kan påverka den andra arten positivt eller negativt. En ökning av skogssork (Clehtrionomys glareolus) och åkersork (Microtus agrestis) ger mer mat åt rödräven (Vulpes vulpes) som i sin tur får bättre chans att reproducera sig. När räven då ökar i antal så minskar sorken eftersom räven jagar och äter mer mat. Det bildas då cykler i populationernas upp- och nedgångar som följs åt. Syftet med denna studie är att se om en stor sorkpopulation ökar rävens reproduktionsframgång efterföljande år samt om ett cykelintervall med förskjutning mellan sork och räv finns med tydligt intervall. Grimsö Forskningsstation har bidragit med data på populationerna från år 1973 fram till år 2023. Lotka-Volterras ekvationer för predator-prey interaktioner användes för att se om ett tydligt cykelintervall mellan populationerna fanns. Resultatet visar på att Lotka-Volterras ekvation inte ger några tydliga förskjutningar mellan populationernas toppar och dalar som vi trodde inför testet. Däremot visar en autokorrelationsanalys att räven ser ut att följa det typiska mönstret för populationscykler medan sorken inte gör det. En korskorrelation stärker resultatet då resultatet är högst vid minimal tidsförskjutning. En icke-parametrisk korrelationsanalys visar slutligen att korrelationen är starkt positiv men att den inte är signifikant.