Plains Harvest Mice in North-Central Kansas: Abundance, Habitat Association and Individual Attributes

Abstract

The plains harvest mouse (Reithrodontomys montanus) is an uncommon small mammal that primarily occurs in herbaceous habitats in the Great Plains. To better understand its ecology and natural history in north-central Kansas, we examined observations of this small prairie mouse in a variety of native and anthropogenic habitats over a geographically widespread area (>200 sites) in the Smoky Hills region of Russell and Lincoln counties during 1976–2003 [total trap nights (TN) was ca. 100,000]. Habitats sampled by snap traps or live traps included native upland prairie and limestone breaks prairie, planted grasslands, old fields, crop fields (primarily wheat fields), fallow fields, fencerows, hay fields and roadside ditches. Sampling schemes generally included 4 nights of trapping along standard traplines at specific sites that were sampled only once as well as multipleyear designs that used live traps and standard traplines or a 10.8 ha grid at specific sites for 2–5 year duration. Plains harvest mice (n = 50...