This study in Lithuania showed that the abundance dynamics of the common dormouse (Muscardinus avellanarius) populations were comparatively “smooth”, without outbreaks and crashes. Decreases and increases of abundance continued for some years, and abundance differed no more than three-fold in two successive years. A close negative correlation was revealed between spring population density and percentage of juveniles in the autumnal population. The last parameter is a consequence of reproduction success, which determined the scale of population increase in autumn and was due to several factors. Among them, proportion of breeding adult females had the greatest significance and was inversely proportional to population density in spring. Some young-of-the-year females usually joined the breeding process, when population density was low. The proportion of late breeding cases, when juveniles were born in September, was also negatively correlated with spring population density. The number of litters produced by one female during the season, and the average litter size also influenced reproduction success. The negative correlation between population density and reproduction success shows the presence of a reproduction success based pattern of density dependent self-regulation in M. avellanarius in the populations investigated.
Studies on nocturnal Lepidoptera were carried out on the Laukėnai raised bog and the adjacent wet forest in 2001. Species composition and abundance were evaluated and compared. The species richness was much higher in the forest than at the bog. The core of each lepidopteran community was composed of 22 species with an abundance of higher than 1.0% of the total catch. Tyrphophilous Hypenodes humidalis (22.0% of all individuals) and Nola aerugula (13.0%) were the dominant species in the raised bog community, while tyrphoneutral Pelosia muscerda (13.6%) and Eilema griseola (8.3%) were the most abundant species at the forest site. Five tyrphobiotic and nine tyrphophilous species made up 43.4% of the total catch on the bog, and three and seven species, respectively, at the forest site, where they made up 9.2% of all individuals. 59% of lepidopteran species recorded on the bog and 36% at the forest site were represented by less than five individuals. The species compositions of these communities showed a weak similarity. Habitat preferences of the tyrphobiontic and tyrphophilous species and dispersal of some of the species between the habitats are discussed.
Since the publication of “The Atlas of European Mammals” in 1999 plenty of new data have been collected on the distribution of Apodemus spp. in Lithuania. These data have changed our knowledge of the comparative distribution of ?A. sylvaticus and A. uralensis in the country. Essentially, A. uralensis is widespread in the north-western part of the country, whereas A. sylvaticus is found only in southern and eastern Lithuania. Both species reach the limits of their geographical ranges in Lithuania.
This article discusses the way in which three different generations
of Lithuanian patriots defined their relationship with the Czech national movement; how the Czech national movement influenced the development of the Lithuanian national movement in the 19th century. The article is methodologically based on a three-stage periodization of the national movement provided by historian, Miroslav Hroch. It draws information primarily on the basis of text analysis of the journals Teka Wileńska, Aušra, and Varpas, which
can be regarded as generational ideological platforms, and correspondence and memories of activists. The author researches the difference in the motivation of Lithuaanian-Polish patriots on one hand and, on the other, by later generations activists of the Lithuanian national movement. and Obsahuje poznámkový aparát pod čarou
The diet of the forest dormouse, Dryomys nitedula, was studied in Lithuania, which is situated on the north-western edge of its range. The diet composition of D. nitedula changes constantly over the activity period. From late April until mid-July, food of animal origin dominates the diet, while vegetable food prevails from mid-July until early September. Over the entire activity season, food of animal origin comprises on average 63 % of dormouse diet by volume estimates. Four main food groups – birds, adult insects, insect larvae and millipedes – dominate, but their proportions vary over the course of the season, as does the composition of vegetable food
used by D. nitedula. Among vegetable food, dormice feed on blossoms of
Norway spruce, oak and aspen in May, cones of Norway spruce during June-August, raspberries, birch seeds and fruits of glossy buckthorn in July and August and oak acorns in late August and early September. The composition of vegetable food used by D. nitedula in Lithuania is rather specific in comparison to other parts of the range and shows high
dormouse adaptability to local conditions. In different years, the proportions
of vegetable and animal food, as well as their compositions, vary in the dormouse diet. Dormice can accumulate sufficient fat reserves for hibernation feeding on both vegetable and animal food.
One of the specific features of many post-Soviet cities is their multiethnic structure, which was strongly influenced by internal migrations within the Soviet Union. Political and economic reforms in the 1990s led to changes in ethnic composition, and the attention given to the processes of ethnic-segregation has started to increase. While most studies focus on capital cities, much less is known about second-tier cities. This article examines the interrelationships between ethnic and social segregation in the metropolitan areas of Lithuania (Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda). The authors use Lithuanian census data from the years 2001 and 2011 to obtain insight into the recent changes in the socio-spatial differentiation of the largest ethnic groups: Lithuanians, Poles, and Russians. The results show a clear relationship between the socioeconomic and ethnic status of the residents of metropolitan areas and, therefore, suggest that ethnic segregation is strongly linked to the general processes of social segregation. The findings also show that the larger the proportion of a certain ethnic minority group in an area, the larger the proportion of lower (social) status residents in this group. In addition, in such cases, ethnic minorities often tend to concentrate in particular areas within the cities.
The article is based on the results of ethnographic field research which the author has conducted over the last 20 years in multi-lingual and multi-faith villages of Belarusian-Lithuanian borderlands in the Grodno region in Belarus. The residents of kolkhoz villages of the region turned out to be unfamiliar with the scholarly term "borderlands". They describe their pluralistic social and cultural reality by means of an underlying metaphor (conceptual archetype) of a mixed world. This emic (subjective) category of describing the social world is subjected in the article to an anthropological analysis and interpretation. The author considers also the emic conceptualisation of the significant differences between "ethnic" groups.