Yellowstone Ecosystem Report
Climatic Factors, Reproduction Success and Populations Dynamics in the Montane Vole Microtus Montanus
Abstract
A variety of hypotheses has been proposed to explain multiannual fluctuations in population density ("cycles") of small rodents (for reviews see Finerty 1980, Taitt and Krebs 1985). Doubtless, such cycles - known since antiquity (Elton 1942) - result from an interaction of a multitude of factors. However, the inability of extant hypotheses, alone or in combination, to explain the causality of cycles rests in no small measure with the fact that longÂterm studies of the phenomenon are notoriously uncommon.