The common vole is a small vole with brown-gray fur and a short tail. In grassland and farmland, it searches for plants beneath grass cover or underground.
Its fur is brownish gray and paler underneath. Rounded ears can be hard to see because they are hidden in the fur, and the tail is relatively short.
Near Gülpe, Germany, researchers released translocated male common voles into grassland corridors and tracked their movement through 60 m-long routes. From July to October 2017, they compared corridors 1 m and 3 m wide and measured each vole's exploratory behavior before release.
Males entered the 1 m corridor after an average of 6 minutes, compared with 35 minutes for the 3 m corridor. They spent an average of 438 minutes in the narrow corridor and 927 minutes in the wider one. Personality scores explained little of movement patterns, while corridor width affected time spent inside.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
In the experiment, males entered the 1 m corridor in 6 minutes on average, versus 35 minutes for the 3 m corridor. The authors recommend matching corridor geometry to the target species and the intended function of the corridor.