The southern water vole is a semi-aquatic rodent. It eats plants along riverbanks and digs burrows in soft, vegetated banks.
Its short, dense brown fur partly covers the ears, and the belly is gray with yellow tones.
Across 75 Mediterranean farmland mosaics in southwestern Portugal, researchers mapped 413 patches of wet herbaceous vegetation. These patches covered 2.5% of the surveyed landscape. Southwestern water voles were recorded in 158 patches within 44 mosaics, linking the species' local records with the amount and arrangement of wet grassland.
Mosaics with more habitat and larger average patches tended to have more occupied patches, while greater isolation between patches was associated with lower occupancy. Relationships with surrounding farmland were weaker, although patch size and irrigated agriculture were more strongly associated with occupancy in the dry season.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
The authors concluded that wet herbaceous patches within irrigated Mediterranean farmland can support southwestern water voles. In this study, patch size was more strongly associated with occupancy during the dry season.