What is the habitat needed for a flying squrriel?

what are some biotic and abiotic facts for this animal?What is the habitat needed for a flying squrriel?
Southern flying squirrels occur in the eastern half of the United States and Canada, ranging to the Atlantic with its western limit running between central Minnesota and central Texas. It ranges south to the Gulf of Mexico and throughout Florida; the northern boundary of its range runs roughly from northern Minnesota to central Maine and southern Nova Scotia. In Mexico and Central America, two distinct populations are known. One occurs in southeast Sonora, southwest Chihuahua, and northwest Durango. The other spans the higher elevations of central and southern Mexico, including Tamaulipas, Jalisco, Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Chiapas, and parts of Guatemala and Honduras.





The range of southern flying squirrels overlaps that of northern flying squirrels in its northernmost parts, including northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, New England, and southern Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. There are isolated regions in West Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina where both species can be found.





In Kansas southern flying squirrels are found in the eastern third of the state, being fairly restricted to thick stands of deciduous forest. Populations are known from Cherokee, Doniphan, Douglas, Leavenworth, Sedgwick, Shawnee, and Wyandotte counties.





Pine and hardwood trees provide suitable foraging and nesting habitat for flying squirrels, while dead trees, called ';snags';, are also important nest sites. The squirrels construct nests in tree branches or in cavities excavated by other animals, often woodpeckers. They also occupy artificial nest boxes. Nests are used by the squirrels on a daily basis, where various combinations of adults and juveniles may share a single nest, or as maternity sites, where a single female will keep her litter. Nests are lined with shredded bark, moss, lichens, leaves, and feathers. Flying squirrels tend to occupy cavities with smaller entrance holes, while other cavity-nesters, such as eastern grey squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) and fox squirrels (S. niger), prefer cavities with larger openings, reducing the number of cavities available to flying squirrels. As a strategy to reduce competition for nest sites, female flying squirrels may move away from higher-quality foraging habitat to construct maternity nests in snags.





Differing preferences for sizes of nest cavities are just one example of resource partitioning displayed by the various squirrels coexisting within a forest. Another such example is that of partitioning of foraging habitat. Flying squirrels are the most arboreal of the squirrels, meaning that they are least likely to descend to the forest floor and prefer to occupy the highest levels of the forest. Consequently, only mature forest stands with complete canopies are suitable for these squirrels; flying squirrels are rarely found in younger forests. The most preferred forest types have relatively open upper levels, for ease of gliding, with complex, covered lower levels for protection against predators. Additionally, flying squirrels do not respond well to forest fragmentation; continuous stands of forest with an area greater than about 5 hectares are required for this species. Conservation of flying squirrels in the face of forest harvest requires the maintenance of strips of mature forest, known as ';greenbelts';, and significant numbers of snags for nesting habitat. Occupation of artificial nest boxes by flying squirrels increases near fragmented areas, and the addition of these boxes may be an important facet in the conservation of flying squirrels in compromised habitat.