Wisconsin’s occurrence databases hold 592 red-backed vole records, most of them gathered from the cool, mossy forest floor of the state’s north woods, and almost none from the winter months.
A vole that spreads the forest’s fungi
The southern red-backed vole needs cool, moist ground with plenty of downed logs and a thick moss layer, conditions that describe the conifer-hardwood forest of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest and the boreal-edge woods of the Apostle Islands far better than open country. It digs through the duff for a diet built heavily around fungi, including underground truffle-like species, and in doing so spreads fungal spores across the forest floor, helping sustain the same trees it lives beneath.
Why winter records nearly disappear
Wisconsin’s vole records cluster almost entirely in July through September and nearly vanish from November through March, but that’s a gap in observation, not in the animal. Red-backed voles stay active all winter in tunnels under the snowpack, insulated from the cold above; the summer spike in records tracks when small-mammal surveys and trail encounters happen, not when the vole is actually out and about.
Status in Wisconsin
NatureServe ranks the red-backed vole S4, apparently secure, in Wisconsin, and it’s native to the state. It holds on wherever the north woods keep enough downed wood and moss cover on the forest floor, a habitat need that ties it closely to older, undisturbed stands.
Full species profile
