Behavioral Ecology Blog

Right outside my door!!!

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Things are going well. Starting to get to know the Peromyscus population. There are a couple of perforate females and animals that I suspect are pregnant. So- the next few days will be really exciting!

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I dont really have anything to say- But I have another cheesey Matt pic to post. Really excited about tomorrow. All 150 traps are up on the hill, so hopefully we’ll catch at least 15-20 mice.

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So after a few nights in the flood plain catching mostly pocket mice- We have moved our traps up to the slope a few hundred meters south east of the reserve center.
This morning in the new site we caught many more Peromyscus than at the other site- so success. We’ll add more traps [...]

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Dipodomys deserti
Some pretty flower
Opuntia bigelovii

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One of the main ways we can tell who is associating with who is by using florescent powders. If an animal (hopefully of the opposite sex) has yellow on her tomorrow AM- we can say for sure that she has had at least some contact with this male.
Catching very few Peromyscus- so thinking of [...]

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I juvenile pocket mouse- Caught more that 15 of these little guys. They were everywhere.

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Finally- after many months of anticipation- I have arrived in Deep Canyon. The weather is great- hot, but not too hot. I heard that the Peromyscus population was soaring- and it must be true- There are signs every where. I’ll keep you posted on how the trapping goes.

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Finally- a panel of working polymorphic microsatellites for Peromyscus eremicus!!
OK- for those who are interested. Microsats are highly variable, rapidly mutating markers used for detecting recent (evolutionary time scale) events, and for parentage analyses (You know- Maury Povich Whose the Daddy Episode). So, using these markers, I can tell, after collecting tissue from [...]

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