Plains Harvest Mice in Tallgrass Prairie: Abundance, Habitat Association and Individual Attributes

Abstract

The plains harvest mouse (Reithrodontomys montanus) inhabits grasslands in the Great Plains, but little is known about its ecology and natural history in native tallgrass prairie. We sampled native tallgrass prairie in spring and autumn by standard traplines on the Konza Prairie Biological Station during autumn 1981-spring 2013 and for shorter time periods in woodlands and brome fields. In addition to our long-term research, we studied small mammals on a large Prairie Grid (∼13 ha) that was trapped intensively (about every 2 weeks except in winter) during 1984–1987. Plains harvest mice (n = 39) were captured in native prairie but not in brome fields or wooded habitats. In all prairie sites, they were found to be rare (1.1 individuals/10,000 trap nights [TN]); in 14 Core Sites sampled for 32 years, abundance was higher in autumn (1.95/10,000 TN) than in spring (0.70/10,000 TN). It was not apparent that these low abundances were related to precipitation or another weather feature. On the Prairie Grid, plain...