Herbicide application affects microhabitat use by arable wood mice (Apodemus sylvaticus)
Tew TE., Macdonald DW., Rands MRW.
Examines the consequences to wood mice of selectively reducing the application of herbicides to the outer 6m of cereal crops ("conservation headland'). Since arable-dwelling wood mice feed on many of the plant and animal species known to increase from conservation headlands, it was hypothesized that conservation headlands would increase the natural food available to wood mice and thereby affect their behaviour. Reduced application of herbicides in small plots along the field headland produced increases in both floral and invertebrate abundance. Wood mice actively sought those headland plots with experimentally elevated food abundance, utilizing reduced-spray plots in preference to both normally sprayed field headlands and the mid-field area. -from Authors