Behavioral Ecology Blog

So it’s been a few days (week) since my last update- which is basically because not much new is happening. The mice (Peromyscus) just don’t seem to be breeding- or at least not much. This is not a big surprise, although it is disappointing. Southern California is in the midst of a severe drought, and as a consequence- the mice have all they can handle with survival- let alone reproduction. As a consequence- I am hoping to find another location to work- someplace up in elevation a little (Elevation in Deep Canyon is ~300 meters.) I’d like to be working at at least 1000m-1500m. I figure that with elevation will come a little more moisture. While it is dry everyplace- animals living up there aren’t so much “living on the edge” like those living on the desert floor.. We’ll see; If all goes well, I’ll leave Deep Canyon in a few days for a whirlwind tour of 6 prospective sites.. Here is a map: I guess you can’t see too much from that map- you’ll have to click on it to see anything.. So the lake on the right side (east) of the photo is the Salton Sea. Does anybody know any of these places:

Riverside County- Snow Creek (Base of San Jacinto Mtn), Eden Hot Springs. Potrero Creek

San Diego County- Warner Pass, Echo Valley, Oviat Ranch

Aside from being places where mice are more likely to be breeding- there is an additional HUGE advantage. These sites were all selected because they there, 3-4 species of Peromyscus are likely to be sympatric. The issue of sympatry is really important for me as it allows me to control for environmental variation- i.e. differences in species caught in the same place is not likely to be a result of environment- right- they are all in the same environment, at least at the macro scale.

How you say can I figure out where these mice are, without having gone there? As a student in the MVZ, I can pull up the database of over 700,000 specimens (most in Ca) and map them. Where the species of interest co-occur is where I go. Additionally, you can query field notes to see exactly what the researcher found and where. Aside from helping out in my situation, the field notes are really interesting. For those of you who know who Joseph Grinnell is- all his field notes are online. Pretty cool..

The distribution map:
Red= Peromyscus Boylii
Green= Peromyscus eremicus
Orange= P. maniculatus
Yellow=P. californicus

On other notes- It’s getting a little hot- high today is in the mid-90’s. That’s warm, but honestly not that bad. The nights are still cool- must have been around 60 last night. Kept the windows and door open.

I’m planning on walking up into the canyon tonight to set those traps. It’s always a super-nice walk- maybe I’ll post some photos later tonight.