This document describes a project to map suitable habitat areas for capturing the threatened garden dormouse in Northwestern Romania. The author intersected shapefiles of the dormouse's habitat range and protected natural areas to identify locations that are both within the species' range and protected status. The resulting map can guide surveys to assess the dormouse's population. Future work may refine target areas based on land cover and the research team's region of activity. The limited existing data on the dormouse in Romania motivated the project to better survey its current distribution.

1. Mapping the Protected Habitat Range of
the Threatened Garden Dormouse
(Eliomys quercinus) in North-Western
Romania
EAES 510 – GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS
ALINA S. TARMU - APRIL 2013

2. Introduction
The garden dormouse (Eliomys quercinus) is a near-threatened rodent
species endemic to Europe, and whose habitat, despite the animal’s
common name, is usually forested areas of a large altitude span and, only
less often, orchards. According to IUCN, populations in the East have
decreased significantly over the last 20-30 years, and the species may
have disappeared from as much as 50% of its former range during the last
30 years. However, there is little information on the current decline or
Eastern range. (IUCN Red List, 2013)
On the territory of Romania, the latest mapped range is reduced mostly
to the North-Western area. However, the last record in Romania is over
20 years old.
A local non-profit research organization has been studying dormice
species populations in the area for the last ten years, without spotting the
elusive garden dormouse. This project is intended to map the areas
where the target species is most likely to be captured, with the future
purpose of studying the local causes of its vertiginous population decline.

3. Most Current Total Range of the
Target Species
A topographic basemap was
added to the vector layer
compiled by the
International Union for
Conservation of Nature.

4. Data Description
A first set of the data used was provided by the IUCN Red List Unit, as a single data set
(shapefile) for all 42642 threatened terrestrial mammals habitat ranges. The original symbology
was changed so that the unique values of the name field are represented with different colors.
The attribute table contains 15 fields: FID,
Shape (polygons), Binomial (species
name), Presence, Origin, Seasonal,
Compiler, Year, Citation, Source,
Dist_Comm (Distribution Commentary),
Island, Subspecies, Subpopulation,
Shape_FID, Tax_Comm (Taxonomy
Commentary).
These are general boundaries of the
threatened terrestrial mammalian species
ranges; they do not take into account land
use and land cover.

5. Data Description
A second dataset was provided by the European Environment Agency. It represents the European Ecological Network of
Protected Natural Areas NATURA 2000. Natura 2000 is the key instrument to protect biodiversity in the European Union.
It is network set up to ensure the survival of Europe's most valuable species and habitats. Natura 2000 is based on the
1979 Birds Directive and the 1992 Habitats Directive. The green infrastructure it provides safeguards numerous
ecosystem services and ensures that Europe's natural systems remain healthy and resilient.
The attribute table of the file contains 8 fields: FID, Shape
(polygons), Sitecode, Sitename, Release Date, MS (country code),
Site Type, Shape Length and Shape Area. There are two types of
sites, corresponding to the two Directives. For this project’s
purpose, we are interested only in the areas designated under the
Habitats Directive: Sites of Communitarian Interest (SCIs), and more
precisely, by the SCIs on the Romanian territory. In contrast with the
habitat ranges of the threatened terrestrial mammalian species, the
entire territories within the boundaries of these sites represent
surfaces protected under the European laws.

6. Methodology
The first data set was processed by selecting the desired attributes (in this case, the binomial
field) and exporting the selection as a new dataset that was added to the map. This way only the
range of the desired species is represented. Next, only the range polygon found on the
Romanian territory was selected and exported as a new dataset.
A similar operation was applied
to the second dataset, so that
only the protected habitats on
the Romanian territory were
exported as a new data set.

7. Methodology
The resulting range polygon was edited using the Cut Polygons tool of the Editor Toolbar to
match the Romanian borders, using the topographic basemap as a guide.

8. Methodology
The Model Builder was used to process the two filtered datasets. For this purpose, we used the
Intersect tool, which computes a geometric intersection of the input features. Features or
portions of features which overlap in all layers and/or feature classes were written to the output
feature class.

9. Results
The resulting dataset includes only the areas with a protected status within the species’ local
habitat range. The map can be used to decide on locations with significant biological diversity,
where there is an increased likelihood of capturing the target species.
Further refining of the target areas will entail intersecting them
with land cover datasets, so that only forested surfaces are
considered as suitable trapping locations. A raster dataset of the
forest land cover (provided also by the EEA) is displayed in the
image, under the protected habitats layer.
Future developments of the project will entail reducing the
target areas to the geographic region of the Transylvanian Plane
(the territory where our research team is active) and creating a
geodatabase that will include a transportation network, which
will help planning and managing the logistic aspects of the
research project. Also, GPS points collected at the trapping sites
could be added and monitored for database maintenance.

10. Conclusions
Very limited data about current population distribution of the garden dormouse (Elyomis
quercinus) in Romania conducted local researchers to the hypothesis that the species was not
properly surveyed. Publicly available datasets (shapefiles) were used in this project in order to
refine the local habitat map of the supposedly locally extinct dormouse species, so that a series
of most suitable locations where the species is most likely to be found can be obtained.
The guiding principle was that areas with a protected status will be likely to yield expected
results, since they are supposed to be relatively undisturbed by harmful influences on species
richness and balance.
The local habitat range polygon was sliced so that it matches the Romanian borders, for logistic
purposes. This step could be skipped or integrated in the Model Builder, provided there is a
country boundaries dataset available. The Model Builder was used to intersect the local habitat
range polygons with the protected areas ones so that only protected territories are considered.
Further data enrichment can include the nationally protected areas dataset, sites which in many
cases have older protection status and in some cases were not completely included in the
European network, due to their unsuitable size.