Do Siberian Flying Squirrels reuse nest materials made by other individuals?

Abstract

Arboreal small mammals nesting in tree hollows usually line nests with materials such as leaves and shredded bark. Pteromys volans orii (Siberian flying squirrel), an endemic subspecies to Hokkaido, Japan, uses shredded bark. Since their nest materials have a very consistent shape, we suspect the squirrels use much effort to collect and shred the bark. To save effort, they may reuse nest materials made by other individuals. To test this, we mixed artificial nest materials (coloured cotton strings) into nest materials and observed the transfer of strings among nests. Of 39 nest boxes seeded with coloured cotton strings, number of strings decreased in 25 boxes (64.10%). Strings from 12 boxes were moved to other boxes. In addition, we found that P. volans orii possibly reused nest materials prepared by other individuals. Both nests and nest materials may be important re-useable resources for P. volans orii.

Communal nesting behaviour of Siberian flying squirrels during the non‐winter season

“…Pteromys volans often uses artificial nest boxes instead of tree cavities (Oshida et al, 2018; Selonen & Mäkeläinen, 2017); however, utilisation is limited to the non‐winter season in Hokkaido, Japan (Asari & Yanagawa, 2016) (Figure 1). It is easy to observe nesting members using nest boxes.…”