A confirmation method for the presence of the Siberian flying squirrel via feces

Abstract

There is concern about population decline and local population extinction of the Siberian flying squirrel Pteromys volans because of forest fragmentation in Finland, Estonia, and South Korea. Our goal was to confirm a simple and efficient method of determining the presence of the squirrels to monitor the effects of forest fragmentation. We searched for their feces in 11 fragmented forests. We set 12 transects, each 10 m long and 4 m wide, randomly in each forest and searched for feces within each transect. First, to characterize the places where feces were found, we measured the distance between the fecal sample and the closest tree, along with the diameter at breast height (DBH) of that tree. All fecal samples that we found were close to large trees. Therefore, we found that it was efficient to search for feces mainly within 20 cm of such trees. Second, to assess the impact of forest size on search success, we evaluated the relationship between the number of transects on which we found feces and forest size. The number was unrelated to forest size. Therefore, we did not need to change our effort according to forest size. Furthermore, we found that five transects per forest gave valid results for squirrel presence.