Very little information exists on the growth rates of woodland rodents and the drivers of body size dynamics that are observed in British populations. In this study, we use mark–recapture data collected on two species living in sympatry, wood mice (Apodemus sylvaticus) and bank voles (Myodes glareolus). A third species of rodent, the yellow‐necked mouse (Apodemus flavicollis) was also caught occasionally. We found the density of this third species negatively impacted the growth rate of both wood mice and bank voles. No impact of conspecific population density on growth for either species was found. Previous studies have suggested high conspecific population density can impact growth for some individuals of the population, but our populations may have not reached the densities required to elucidate these effects during the study.

中文翻译：

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影响林地啮齿动物生长的因素

在英国人口中，关于林地啮齿动物的生长速度和体重动态的驱动因素的信息很少。在这项研究中，我们使用收集在共生物种中的两种物种的标记捕获数据，即木材小鼠（Apodemus sylvaticus）和岸田鼠（Myodes glareolus）。啮齿动物的第三种，黄颈小鼠（Apodemus flavicollis）也偶尔被抓到。我们发现该第三物种的密度对木鼠和河岸田鼠的生长速度均产生负面影响。没有发现同种种群密度对两种物种的生长都没有影响。先前的研究表明，高同种种群密度可能会影响某些个体的生长，但我们的种群可能未达到阐明研究期间这些效应所需的密度。