Vole damage to planted tree regeneration conditioned by someenvironmental factors

摘要

Recently, a great effort has been applied in the Czech Republic to replace forest monocultures of coniferous species by mixed coniferous-broadleaved stands in a ‘close to nature’ composition. These reforestation activities are complicated by impactof vole species (above all Microtusarvalis, M. agrestis and Myodes glareolus) through damage to tree bark.To quantify the damage by voles, we conducted research in 4 forest areas on 7200 trees from 3 to 15 years of age (beech being the dominanttree species). The main pre-requisite factors responsible for damage werethe cover and the height of weedy species in the clearings and the proportion of grasses and grass litter on the plots.