Tracking the Secret Lives of Scotland’s Woodland Rodents
In this new field blog, RESTOREID researcher Maria José López Jara takes us into the Scottish woodlands, where the RESTOREID team is studying wild rodents and the viruses they carry. By combining restoration ecology with wildlife health research, their work explores how forest age and connectivity influence animal behaviour, disease dynamics, and ultimately the relationship between ecosystem restoration and human well-being.
In t-shirts, with sunscreen and hats on, we started this unusually warm and dry field season in Scotland. The field team and I visited two woodland restoration sites: a young woodland around 30 years old and a mature woodland of over 250 years old. These woodlands, despite their small size, are home to much wildlife, including small mammals, such as wood mice and bank voles, as well as deer, rabbits, badgers, owls, and other bird species.
This year, we will focus on studying some of the residents of these woodlands - wild rodents - but also on the residents of the residents - their viruses. More specifically, we are interested in understanding how viruses transmit within rodent populations across different woodland sites. To do this, we spent several hours measuring and marking points every 10 meters, and, at these points, we placed black plastic boxes. Even though they don’t look like much, these plastic boxes are what we call movement loggers, which contain a radiofrequency identification antenna, a battery, and some other electronic components, which are designed to read microchips used for animal tagging. These movement loggers will provide us with data on how our rodents move around the woodlands.
Fig 1. Movement Logger
Now that we have finished setting up these loggers in the woodlands, we will catch wood mice and bank voles. To catch them, we use non-lethal traps baited with apple and peanuts – an irresistible find for a wild rodent. Upon capture, we implant them with a microchip for identification (like the ones used for dogs and cats), give a brief health check, and obtain a few samples from each rodent. After a few minutes, they are free to go. By doing this, we will be able to track each individual rodent in time, investigate their behaviour, health, and monitor virus infections.
By studying the secret lives of wild rodents and their viruses, we will be able to unravel some of the factors influencing animal health, and particularly how their health changes across different woodlands of varying ages, or when isolated or connected to other woodlands. As we push to reforest and restore our environment, understanding how this may impact the health of wild populations is relevant not only for wildlife conservation but also for safeguarding human health.
Fig 2. Sampling process and tools
