Myodes glareolus (Schreber 1780)

[Mus] glareolus Schreber 1780, Die Saugethiere, Vol. 4: 680.

Type Locality: Denmark, Lolland Isl.

Vernacular Names: Bank Vole.

Synonyms: Myodes alstoni (Barrett-Hamilton and Hinton 1913); Myodes arvalis (Geoffroy 1803); Myodes bernisi (Rey 1972); Myodes bicolor (Fatio 1862); Myodes bosniensis (Martino 1945); Myodes britannicus (Miller 1900); Myodes caesarius (Miller 1908); Myodes cantueli (Saint Girons 1969); Myodes curcio (Lehman 1961); Myodes devius (Stroganov 1948); Myodes erica (Barret-Hamilton 1913); Myodes fulvus (Millet 1828); Myodes garganicus (Hagen 1958); Myodes gorka (Montagu 1923); Myodes hallucalis (Thomas 1906); Myodes harrisoni (Hinton 1926); Myodes helveticus (Miller 1900); Myodes hercynicus (Mehlis 1831); Myodes insulaebellae (Heim de Balsac 1940); Myodes intermedius (Burg 1923); Myodes istericus (Miller 1909); Myodes italicus (Dal Piaz 1924); Myodes jurassicus (Burg 1923); Myodes kennardi (Hinton 1926); Myodes makedonicus (Felten and Storch 1965); Myodes minor (Kerr 1792); Myodes nageri (Schinz 1845); Myodes norvegicus (Miller 1900); Myodes ognevi (Serebrennikov 1927); Myodes petrovi (Martino 1945); Myodes pirenaica (Cabrera 1924); Myodes pirinus (Wolf 1940); Myodes ponticus (Thomas 1906); Myodes pratensis (Baillon 1834); Myodes pratensis (Bell 1837); Myodes reinwaldti (Hinton 1921); Myodes riparia (Yarrell 1832); Myodes rubidus (Baillon 1834); Myodes rufescens (de Sélys Longchamps 1836); Myodes ruttneri (Wettstein 1926); Myodes saianicus (Thomas 1911); Myodes sibiricus (Egorin 1936); Myodes skomerensis (Barrett-Hamilton 1903); Myodes sobrus (Montagu 1923); Myodes suecicus (Miller 1900); Myodes tomensis (Heptner 1948); Myodes variscicus (Wettstein 1954); Myodes vasconiae (Miller 1900); Myodes vesanus (Hinton 1926); Myodes wasjuganensis (Egorin 1939).

Distribution: W Palaearctic forests from France and Scandinavia to Lake Baikal, south to N Spain, N Italy (isolated montane populations farther south), the Balkans (but not most of Greece), W and N Turkey, N Kazakhstan and the Altai and Sayan Mtns; also occurs on Britain and SW Ireland.

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: European populations reviewed by Viro and Niethammer (1982) and Mitchell-Jones et al. (1999), those in Russia and adjacent regions by Gromov and Erbajeva (1995). Regional reports covering range, taxonomy, and ecology are available for: N Turkey (Pamukoglu and Albayrak, 1996), Greece (Thrace; Vohralík and Sofianidou, 1992 a), Serbia and Montenegro (Kryštufek and Vohralík, 1992; Petrov, 1992), Slovenia (Kryštufek, 1991), NE Spain (Torre et al., 1996) and Navarra region of N Spain (Castien and Gosalbez, 1992), Netherlands (Bergers and Bussink, 1995; Mostert, 1992 a), E Baltic region (Miljutin, 1997, 1998; Timm et al., 1998), Italia (Amori et al., 1999; Cantini, 1991; Cerone and Aloise, 1994; Cresti et al., 1994; Locatelli and Paolucci, 1996 a), Slovakia (Danko, 1994; Kminiak, 1996; Mošanský, 1994; Stanko, 1995; Stanko and Mošanský, 1994, 2000; Stanko et al., 1994, 2000), Czech Republic (Šmaha, 1996), N Germany (Dolch et al., 1994), Sumava Mtns of SW Bohemia (Andĕra and Červený, 1994), and Switzerland (Hausser, 1995; Maurizio, 1994).

Morphologically and biochemically, M. glareolus is closely allied with M. centralis (Mezhzherin and Serbenyuk, 1992). Evolutionary relationships among British samples reported by Steven (1953), biochemical differentiation among populations over short geographic distances presented by Leitner and Hartl (1988). Univariate and multivariate distillations of metric and non-metric traits of Austrian samples, as integrated with allozymic and mitochondrial DNA analyses, point to distinctive eastern and western moieties: "the Eastern Alps were colonized in postglacial times by two different phylogenetic lineages (nageri from the west, glareolus or istericus from the east) that probably had split during the Würm glaciation" (Spitzenberger et al., 1999:69). Y-chromosome polymorphisms encountered at the same localities in Serbia and Montenegro thought to indicate postglacial secondary contact (Vujošević and Blagojević, 1997). Normal synaptic association between gonosomes in M. glareolus documented by Ashley and Fredga (1994) in a phylogenetic context. M3 variation among extant and fossil samples analyzed and interpreted by Bauchau and Chaline (1987). Based on huge samples from the Czech Republic, Zejda et al. (1994) concluded that modal differences in m1 and M3 patterns mirrored genetic divergence among populations where samples are large and age groups are considered. In a homogeneous population, Plakchotnikova et al. (1992) uncovered no significant differences in molar dimensions between right and left sides or between males and females. Istomin (1994 a, b) tabulated the infrequent occurrence of polydonty and interpreted variation in other cranial traits across fragmented habitats within the S Taiga, NW Russia. Literák and Zejda (1995) described color mutations in wild populations in the Czech Republic. Bank voles represent a recent introduction to Ireland, not recorded until 1964; Smiddy and Sleeman (1994) surveyed their range and rate of expansion in County Cork, SW Ireland, presumably from a small founder population as indicated by mitochrondrial DNA analyses (Ryan et al., 1996).