Showing papers on "Flying squirrel published in 2003"
TL;DR: It is suggested that conservation acts for maintaining viable populations of flying squirrels should focus on the quality of managed forest and the area of suitable breeding habitat (i.e. on habitat loss), but not necessarily on ecological corridors.
Abstract: Elements of the landscape, such as patches of preferred habitat, matrix between patches, and corridors linking patches, differ as movement habitat for animals. To understand how landscape structure influences the movement and thus, population dynamics of animals, clear empirical knowledge on patterns of movement is needed. The Siberian flying squirrel inhabits spruce-dominated boreal forests from Finland to eastern Siberia. Numbers of flying squirrels have declined severely in Finland in past decades, probably due to modern forestry. We studied the movement of radio-collared adult flying squirrels in preferred (spruce forest) and in matrix habitat (open areas and other habitats with trees) in Finland 1997-2000, and determined whether the woodland strips connecting patches of preferred habitat could function as ecological corridors for flying squirrels. Flying squirrels used woodland strips for inter-patch movements, but also used matrix with trees and were able to cross narrow open gaps. Males moved longer total distances and crossed edges more often than females. Males used matrix habitats for movement between spruce patches, and moved faster and more directly in the matrix than in the spruce forest. Females seldom changed spruce patches, but instead used the matrix for foraging. For both sexes probability of leaving the spruce forest patch correlated negatively with the size of the patch, but the type of connection the patch had to other patches did not affect the leaving probability. Due to efficient movement abilities of the flying squirrel and forest-dominated landscape structure of southern Finland, we suggest that conservation acts for maintaining viable populations of flying squirrels should focus on the quality of managed forest and the area of suitable breeding habitat (i.e. on habitat loss), but not necessarily on ecological corridors.
85 citations
TL;DR: This article examined responses of Siberian flying squirrels to edges between nesting habitat (mature spruce forests), movement habitat (other forests, pine bogs), and open areas within their home ranges in southern Finland in 1996-2000.
Abstract: We examined responses of Siberian flying squirrels ( Pteromys volans ) to edges between nesting habitat (mature spruce forests), movement habitat (other forests, pine bogs), and open areas within their home ranges in southern Finland in 1996-2000. Radio-tracked squirrels (n=146) were generally associated to edges when they were ac tive at night. Compared to distances expected from the habitat pattern of their home range, squirrels occurred closer to high-contrast edges (of open areas) and low-contrast edges (nesting or movement forest types). Asso ciation with edges of open areas was more pronounced when squirrels were in movement habitat than in nesting habitat, possibly because of stronger channeling of movements in the former habitat. When in nesting habitat, squirrels responded more strongly to field edges than to recent clearcut edges, probably as a result of the pres ence of more deciduous trees on field edges, unlike clearcut edges. Responses to open areas were independent of spatial scale. However, responses to movement habitat from nesting habitat, and vice versa, were more pronounced over hundreds than tens of meters. Nesting cavities and dreys were generally located at random with respect to edges. We conclude that squirrel responses to edges of landscape attributes are diverse and depend both on spatial scale and edge contrast.
49 citations
TL;DR: In March 2002, typhus fever was diagnosed in two patients residing in West Virginia and Georgia who had recently exposed to or had physical contact with flying squirrels or flying squirrel nests.
Abstract: Typhus fever from Rickettsia prowazekii infection is a severe and occasionally fatal disease in humans. Frequently referred to as epidemic typhus or louse-borne typhus, this disease can cause large epidemics when conditions are favorable for person-to-person spread of body lice (Pediculus humanus humanus). For the last few decades, reported outbreaks have been confined mainly to the cold mountainous regions of Africa and South America and have disproportionately affected impoverished and displaced communities (1).
Infections with R. prowazekii are rarely described in the United States. From 1976 to 2001, a total of 39 human R. prowazekii infections were documented in persons with no reported contact with body lice or persons with lice (2–5). Nearly all of these cases were in the eastern United States, and in approximately one third of cases, contact with flying squirrels (Glaucomys spp.) or with flying squirrel nests occurred before disease onset.
Flying squirrels are the only known vertebrate reservoir, other than humans, of R. prowazekii, and contact with these animals has been linked to most sporadic typhus cases in the United States. Interest in this disease was high in the 10 years after the first isolation of R. prowazekii from flying squirrels (6,7), but few cases have been reported since 1985. We describe two cases of flying squirrel–associated typhus that occurred in West Virginia and Georgia in 2002 and provide a contemporary summary of this disease in the United States.
47 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: The presence, during roughly the same stratigraphic interval, of a flying squirrel in Tegelen and of ground squirrels in Zuurland confirms marked differences in the Late Tiglian environments between the east and the west of the Netherlands.
Abstract: The number of known sciurid and petauristid fossils from The Netherlands is nearly doubled with the description of material from the Zuurland boreholes, the Maasvlakte, and the Tegelen claypit. The material from Tegelen is assigned to a new species of flying squirrel, Hylopetes debruijni nov. sp. One molar from the late Early Pleistocene of the Zuurland borehole is assigned to Sciurus cf. S. vulgaris. The remaining finds from the Tiglian of the Zuurland boreholes, as well as the single molar from the Maasvlakte, are all assigned to Spermophilus primigenius; this name is preferred over the suggestive use of names of recent ground squirrels for fossil material. The presence, during roughly the same stratigraphic interval, of a flying squirrel in Tegelen and of ground squirrels in Zuurland confirms marked differences in the Late Tiglian environments between the east and the west of the Netherlands.
35 citations
TL;DR: It is indicated that woolly flying squirrels feed, mostly or entirely, on pine needles, which is extremely unusual for a mammal and may explain the squirrel’s unusual tooth structure.
Abstract: The woolly flying squirrel ( Eupetaurus cinereus) is an extremely aberrant sciurid. It is the longest squirrel in the world and the only sciurid with hypsodont dentition. Most of the information on this species comes from a few study skins collected from the western Himalayas over a century ago. The unusual tooth structure of the squirrel led to suppositions about its diet, including the supposition that it ate moss and lichens scraped from rocks. In 1994, 1995, and 1996, we analyzed fecal samples from 4 squirrels. All 4 squirrels ate 92‐100% pine needles. These data, coupled with observations of captive and recently released specimens, indicated that woolly flying squirrels feed, mostly or entirely, on pine needles. Such a diet is extremely unusual for a mammal and may explain the squirrel’s unusual tooth structure. Destruction of high-elevation pine woodlands in this region is a distinct and immediate threat to the survival of this species.
20 citations
TL;DR: Polymerase chain reaction primers for microsatellite DNA loci and the conditions necessary to amplify each are described for the southern flying squirrel and they yielded a high allelic diversity and moderate to high observed heterozygosities.
Abstract: Polymerase chain reaction primers for microsatellite DNA loci (one dinucleotide, four tetranucleotide and two compound) and the conditions necessary to amplify each are described for the southern flying squirrel ( Glaucomys volans ). These primers were tested on 22 or more individuals from a population at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. These microsatellite primers yielded a high allelic diversity (6–22 alleles/locus), and moderate to high observed heterozygosities (0.318–0.826). Primers developed for the northern flying squirrel ( Glaucomys sabrinus ) were also tested for use on G. volans , with only two successful cross amplifications from the seven loci.
12 citations
01 Jan 2003
TL;DR: It is indicated that woolly flying squirrels feed, mostly or entirely, on pine needles, which is extremely unusual for a mammal and may explain the squirrel's unusual tooth structure.
Abstract: The woolly flying squirrel (Eupetaurus cinereus) is an extremely aberrant sciurid. It is the longest squirrel in the world and the only sciurid with hypsodont dentition. Most of the information on this species comes from a few study skins collected from the western Himalayas over a century ago. The unusual tooth structure of the squirrel led to suppositions about its diet, including the supposition that it ate moss and lichens scraped from rocks. In 1994, 1995, and 1996, we analyzed fecal samples from 4 squirrels. All 4 squirrels ate 92-100% pine needles. These data, coupled with observations of captive and recently released specimens, indicated that woolly flying squirrels feed, mostly or entirely, on pine needles. Such a diet is extremely unusual for a mammal and may explain the squirrel's unusual tooth structure. Destruction of high-elevation pine woodlands in this region is a distinct and immediate threat to the survival of this species.
1 citations