Bank voles were introduced to Ireland from Central Europe in 1920 and have continued to spread across the island ever since. At several locations (black dots), the behavior of individual animals was studied. Individuals in the expansion zone (orange) are more careful and less active than animals in the established zones (green), but they also explore more extensively.
Invasive animal and plant species are a challenge for biodiversity all over the world. To better understand the actual expansion processes during a biological invasion, researchers at the University of Potsdam and Trinity College Dublin investigated an ongoing invasion. Bank voles, a Eurasian vole species, were accidentally brought to the west coast of Ireland more than 100 years ago and have spread continuously since then. During the expansion phase, edge populations emerge with special attributes of individual specimen that differ from the long established core populations. The results have now been published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society and in the journal Current Zoology. ...
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