Investigating influences of landscape structure on small mammal abundance in Alberta’s boreal mixed-wood forest. pp. 29–35. In: T. Veeman et al

The landscape scale arrangement of habitat patches has been shown to be a significant predictor of organisms ’ distribution and abundance in areas of extensive fragmentation. This study was designed to examine the importance of this phenomenon in the mixed-wood boreal forest of Alberta, a region where habitat has experienced only nominal modification. Three species of mammals: Clethrionomys gapperi (the red-backed vole), Peromyscus maniculatus (the deer mouse), and Tamiasciurus hudsonicus (the red squirrel were censused on grids in burned, harvested and control landscapes. Relationships between mammal distribution and landscape structure, quantified at a number of spatial scales, were sought. We compared the different responses of these species to landscape structure, within and across anthropogenically and naturally disturbed areas. Management implications in terms of relative dispersion and size of disturbed patches are discussed