Distribution of Norhern Red-Backed Vole Myodes rutilus (Pallas, 1779) in Western Siberia

Materials collected in the flatland and highland parts of Western Siberia in the second half of the summer in 1954–2016 have been used to analyze the zonal and provincial aspects of the biotope distribution of the northern red-backed vole Myodes rutilus. The previously reported preference of the species for flatland and mountain forests with the contribution of dark coniferous tree species within the taiga zone of the plain, northeastern Altai, and Kuznetsk Alatau has been confirmed. Cluster analysis of the matrix of similarity coefficients of the abundance has been performed and used to classify northern red-backed vole habitats according to the optimality of environmental conditions (favorability) for this species. At the same time, this classification is a cluster arrangement of the abundance representations at the territory under consideration. Five types of conditions—optimal, suboptimal, subpessimal, pessimal, and extremal—have been identified, with the first type divided into two subtypes. The differences in northern red-backed vole abundance between habitat subtypes are less pronounced than the differences between the types. The classification and the structural graph reveal the dependence of abundance on a range of factors and regimens (inseparable combinations of factors). The factors for the entire Western Siberia are as follows: heat and water supply, macrorelief characteristics (plain or mountains), vegetation type, degree of afforestation, species composition of the tree stand in the forests, flooding during seasonal floods, waterlogging, ploughing, and the degree of area development. The zone-subzone differences affect the distribution of the species under consideration only on the plain, whereas provinciality and altitude zonation affect the distribution only in the mountains. The strongest correlation with northern red-backed vole distribution in Western Siberian habitats is observed for heat and water supply (zonality and subzonality on the plain and altitude zonation in the mountains). Our studies of the distribution of this vole refine the results of analysis performed by our predecessors and give a more detailed pattern of species distribution over the habitats.