Abstract Studies of density‐dependent habitat selection typically assess choices between two or more distinctly different habitat opportunities. Although such studies can clearly document habitat choice, they cannot unambiguously differentiate the effects of density from underlying differences in habitat and their associated cues for choosing some habitats over others. I resolve the ambiguity by assessing habitat selection between natural enclosures differing only in population density of meadow voles. Voles added weekly and cumulatively to one enclosure were allowed to disperse to a second. I maintained identical per capita food abundances in both enclosures. Student interns and I monitored vole numbers with live trapping, measured the amount of food eaten, and assessed foraging with giving‐up densities in safe versus risky foraging patches. The number of voles and giving‐up densities in the enclosures equilibrated weekly through dispersal. Resource consumption increased and giving‐up densities declined with increasing vole density. Giving‐up densities were lower in safe than in risky foraging trays, and the difference between trays declined with increasing vole density. The results document that the voles equilibrated densities and foraging gains with respect only to population density and did so without other obvious cues or mechanisms underlying habitat choice. Those cues and mechanisms may be sufficient to account for habitat choice, but it is only density that is necessary for density‐dependent habitat selection.
Douglas W. Morris (Sun,) studied this question.