Behavioral Ecology Blog

Peromyscus californicus
Originally uploaded by PeroMHC

She was pregnant and lactating. Caught at Hastings Reserve, Carmel Valley, CA

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Peromyscus truei
Originally uploaded by PeroMHC

Such a cute little thing….

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I’ve been all over the central Californian coast, looking for a nice place to trap mice. I’ve seen some pretty nice places, and see some cool things.. Here are some photos from:
 
Coyote at the Marino Reserve
 

Peromyscus californicus at the Marino Reserve. Check out all those ticks

This is the researcher housing at the Marino Reserve.. Pretty [...]

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Partly motivated by my desire to get out of the city, part interested in seeing what it all looks like after the devastating Southern California wild fires, and partly wanting to see how Peromyscus populations are doing after this years record drought- we decided to spend a few days in the desert! Our plan [...]

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So Bora blogged a few days ago about open access science, commenting that th day may come when grant proposals may become available to formal reviewers and other interested parties much like accepted manuscripts are today..
This struck me 1st off as wrong- the ideas in grant proposals translate into $$, and novel ideas are [...]

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Following up on my post from a few days ago about the unexpected results looking at MHC polymorphism and mating system- It seems to me that I should make explicit the alternative hypotheses…
So basically there are 4, not-strictly-mutually-exclusive ones that I will test.

MHC polymorphism is related to sexual behavior, i.e. mating system. Basically saying that [...]

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Is there anyone out there working on a genus level phylogeny of Peromyscus?? It is super annoying that a “super-tree” does not exist…. Argh… I need a tree to proceed with several of the most exciting research questions- and not being a phylogeneticist, the prospects of having to build one myself is slightly daunting.. [...]

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Here is a map of the percent of average precipitation from January to the end of July… >20% of usual rainfall in the vast majority of Southern CA… exactly where my field site is…
The mice have not bred this year, and populations are very low.. I’m not sure that even A wet fall/winter will revive [...]

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It’s been along time since I did a research update- so for the one or two of you that care- here are the highlights (and lowlights)….
Field WorkField Work is largely on hold until the fall rains (that is- assuming it rains). Right now, it is 110F and dry as hell.. The populations sizes [...]

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So as many of you know, I have been having significant problems this spring with the mice. Basically, my dissertation depends on my being able to find breeding mice. This has been difficult… I work in the Sonoran Desert in Southern California, specifically Riverside county. Now California is in the middle [...]

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