Voles thrive on small plants yet, like shrews, they will eat dead animals and, like mice and rats, they can live on almost any nut or fruit.
Bulbs are another favorite target for voles; their excellent burrowing and tunnelling skills give them access to sensitive areas without clear or early warning.
However, like other burrowing rodents, they also play beneficial roles, including dispersing nutrients throughout the upper soil layers.
[2] Many predators eat voles, including martens, owls, hawks, falcons, coyotes, bobcats,[3] foxes,[4] raccoons, squirrels, snakes, weasels, domestic cats and lynxes.
[9][10][11][12] In the summer of 2024, biologists and other scientists at UC Davis first observed California ground squirrels actively hunting voles.
[16] However, other scientists have disputed the gene's relationship to monogamy, and cast doubt on whether the human version plays an analogous role.
[17] Physiologically, pair-bonding behavior has been shown to be connected to vasopressin, dopamine, and oxytocin levels, with the genetic influence apparently arising via the number of receptors for these substances in the brain; the pair-bonding behavior has also been shown in experiments to be strongly modifiable by administering some of these substances directly.
Voles live in colonies due to the young remaining in the family group for relatively long periods.
[20] In the genus Microtus, monogamy is preferred when resources are spatially homogeneous and population densities are low; where the opposites of both conditions are realized, polygamous tendencies arise.
[21] Vole mating systems are also sensitive to the operational sex ratio and tend toward monogamy when males and females are present in equal numbers.
[26] Populations which are monogamous show relatively minor size differences between genders compared with those using polygamous systems.
[27] The grey-sided vole (Myodes rufocanus) exhibits male-biased dispersal as a means of avoiding incestuous matings.
[29] Such a strategy is likely an adaptation to avoid the inbreeding depression that would be caused by expression of deleterious recessive alleles if close relatives mated.
[30] This type of empathetic behavior has previously been thought to occur only in animals with advanced cognition such as humans, apes, and elephants.