Skip to main content
 logo

Main navigation

  • About Us
    • Overview
      • Spatial and Temporal Design
      • History
    • Vision and Management
    • Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA)
      • Code of Conduct
    • Advisory Groups
      • Science, Technology & Education Advisory Committee
      • Technical Working Groups (TWGs)
    • FAQ
    • Contact Us
      • Field Offices
    • User Accounts
    • Staff

    About Us

  • Data & Samples
    • Data Portal
      • Explore Data Products
      • Data Availability Charts
      • Spatial Data & Maps
      • Document Library
      • API & GraphQL
      • Prototype Data
      • External Lab Data Ingest (restricted)
    • Data Themes
      • Atmosphere
      • Biogeochemistry
      • Ecohydrology
      • Land Cover and Processes
      • Organisms, Populations, and Communities
    • Samples & Specimens
      • Discover and Use NEON Samples
        • Sample Types
        • Sample Repositories
        • Sample Explorer
        • Megapit and Distributed Initial Characterization Soil Archives
        • Excess Samples
      • Sample Processing
      • Sample Quality
      • Taxonomic Lists
    • Collection Methods
      • Protocols & Standardized Methods
      • Airborne Remote Sensing
        • Flight Box Design
        • Flight Schedules and Coverage
        • Daily Flight Reports
          • AOP Flight Report Sign Up
        • Camera
        • Imaging Spectrometer
        • Lidar
      • Automated Instruments
        • Site Level Sampling Design
        • Sensor Collection Frequency
        • Instrumented Collection Types
          • Meteorology
          • Phenocams
          • Soil Sensors
          • Ground Water
          • Surface Water
      • Observational Sampling
        • Site Level Sampling Design
        • Sampling Schedules
        • Observation Types
          • Aquatic Organisms
            • Aquatic Microbes
            • Fish
            • Macroinvertebrates & Zooplankton
            • Periphyton, Phytoplankton, and Aquatic Plants
          • Terrestrial Organisms
            • Birds
            • Ground Beetles
            • Mosquitoes
            • Small Mammals
            • Soil Microbes
            • Terrestrial Plants
            • Ticks
          • Hydrology & Geomorphology
            • Discharge
            • Geomorphology
          • Biogeochemistry
          • DNA Sequences
          • Pathogens
          • Sediments
          • Soils
            • Soil Descriptions
    • Data Notifications
    • Data Guidelines and Policies
      • Acknowledging and Citing NEON
      • Publishing Research Outputs
      • Usage Policies
    • Data Management
      • Data Availability
      • Data Formats and Conventions
      • Data Processing
      • Data Quality
      • Data Product Bundles
      • Data Product Revisions and Releases
        • Release 2021
        • Release 2022
        • Release 2023
      • NEON and Google
      • Externally Hosted Data

    Data & Samples

  • Field Sites
    • About Field Sites and Domains
    • Explore Field Sites
    • Site Management Data Product

    Field Sites

  • Impact
    • Observatory Blog
    • Case Studies
    • Spotlights
    • Papers & Publications
    • Newsroom
      • NEON in the News
      • Newsletter Archive
      • Newsletter Sign Up

    Impact

  • Resources
    • Getting Started with NEON Data & Resources
    • Documents and Communication Resources
      • Papers & Publications
      • Document Library
      • Outreach Materials
    • Code Hub
      • Code Resources Guidelines
      • Code Resources Submission
      • NEON's GitHub Organization Homepage
    • Learning Hub
      • Science Videos
      • Tutorials
      • Workshops & Courses
      • Teaching Modules
      • Faculty Mentoring Networks
      • Data Education Fellows
    • Research Support and Assignable Assets
      • Field Site Coordination
      • Letters of Support
      • Mobile Deployment Platforms
      • Permits and Permissions
      • AOP Flight Campaigns
      • Excess Samples
      • Assignable Assets FAQs
    • Funding Opportunities

    Resources

  • Get Involved
    • Advisory Groups
      • Science, Technology & Education Advisory Committee
      • Technical Working Groups
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
    • NEON Ambassador Program
      • Exploring NEON-Derived Data Products Workshop Series
    • Collaborative Works
      • EFI-NEON Ecological Forecasting Challenge
      • NCAR-NEON-Community Collaborations
      • NEON Science Summit
      • NEON Great Lakes User Group
    • Community Engagement
    • Science Seminars and Data Skills Webinars
      • Past Years
    • Work Opportunities
      • Careers
      • Seasonal Fieldwork
      • Internships
        • Intern Alumni
    • Partners

    Get Involved

  • My Account
  • Search

Search

Impact

  • Observatory Blog
  • Case Studies
  • Spotlights
  • Papers & Publications
  • Newsroom

Breadcrumb

  1. Impact
  2. Observatory Blog
  3. A Mouse is a Mouse is a Mouse? Guess Again

Case Study

A Mouse is a Mouse is a Mouse? Guess Again

October 16, 2019

Selfie with a mouse

"Mice," says Michael Cramer, "are the French fries of the forest. Everyone eats them."

He would know. Michael, a small mammal researcher and the Assistant Director of the University of Notre Dame Environmental Research Center (UNDERC), has spent much of his career studying the ecology and behavior of mice and other small mammals. His latest research leverages NEON data to document how mouse populations are changing over time—and how these small fries may be changing the ecosystems around them.

A Tale (Tail?) of Two Mice

Michael is looking at the populations of two different species of deer mice at UNDERC: the white-footed deer mouse (Peromyscus leucopus) and the woodland deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus gracilis). These closely related species look similar, but have somewhat different behaviors and ecological niches.

Peromyscus mouse comparison

On left: White-footed deer mouse (Peromyscus leucopus); on right: the woodland deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus gracilis)

The woodland mouse, as its name suggests, tends to thrive in undisturbed forests. Its white-footed cousin is more adaptable, happily living in a wide range of habitats and in areas disturbed by humans. Over the last few decades, researchers in the Great Lakes region have documented a decline in woodland deer mouse populations and a corresponding increase in white-footed deer mouse populations in many habitats. In some areas, white-footed mice are moving into habitats once dominated by woodland mice; there is concern that the woodland species may be getting crowded out as white-footed mice move in.

Both species serve as an important food source for a variety of predators, including hawks, owls, weasels, foxes, coyotes and snakes. For this reason, many people think of the two species as largely interchangeable in the ecosystem. However, Michael's research suggests that their foraging habits and breeding patterns are different enough to give them slightly different ecological niches. For example, woodland mice eat specific species of maples seeds at different times of the year while white-footed mice are less particular in their eating habits. Over time, eating patterns of large populations of mice could impact the makeup of the forest habitat in unexpected ways.

A Mouse Model of Ecological Change

For Michael, the mice are a model species to address larger questions of how populations and ecosystems are changing over time. "They sit right in the middle of the food web, and are an excellent indicator of overall forest health," he says. He is interested in learning how the composition of mouse populations impacts other aspects of the ecosystem. "If you swap out P. maniculatus for P. leucopus, will it change the types of trees that are successful in the forest? Do they have different behaviors that make them more or less vulnerable to different predators? There is a lot we don't know yet."

Selfie with a mouse

Michael Cramer, a small mammal researcher and the Assistant Director of the University of Notre Dame Environmental Research Center (UNDERC) takes a selfie with a mouse on his shoulder.

One important question is how the different species may respond to climate change. The woodland deer mouse is better adapted to cold weather and shows better survival rates in harsh winter conditions. On the other hand, the white-footed deer mouse has the ability to produce more litters in a year. When temperatures are milder, this allows P. leucopus to outbreed the competition.

UNDERC, located on the outskirts of Ottawa National Forest on the border of Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula, has experienced shifts in temperature and precipitation patterns in recent decades. Winters are getting warmer and experiencing less snowfall overall. But the upper Midwest experiences occasional "polar vortex" conditions with extended periods of extreme cold. These unpredictable temperature fluctuations may be particularly hard on white-footed mice, especially when there is no snowfall to insulate the ground. If the white-footed mouse crowds out woodland mice in warmer years, forests could see a collapse in overall mouse abundance in polar vortex years, with consequences all through the food web.

So far, Michael has not seen this pattern at UNDERC; populations of both woodland and white-footed deer mice have remained stable. However, his colleagues in other parts of Michigan and the Midwest have recorded fewer woodland and more white-footed mice in many habitats. Michael theorizes that the undisturbed woodlands in the national forests that surround UNDERC may provide a protected habitat where woodland deer mice can thrive.

Answering the Big Questions with NEON Small Mammal Data

UNDERC is the host for the NEON core terrestrial field site in the Domain 5 Great Lakes region (UNDE). Michael's research draws on data from the NEON program as well as from his own sampling efforts. He says, "Working with NEON has been a real pleasure. They have great people working here and a lot of neat stuff going on across the property."

Comparing small mammal data from NEON sampling grids to the data Michael is collecting on his own grids provides a broader view of Peromyscus population dynamics across the entire site. He has been able to use that data to answer questions about where white-footed deer mice are entering the site and how the population is spreading. Based on some of this data, he believes that nearby human-disturbed areas may provide a continual new source of white-footed mice into forest habitats where they may not survive the winters.

Population genetics is the next frontier that Michael would like to tackle. Studying the genomes of different P. leucopus populations will allow him to build a clearer picture of how the population has spread spatially over time. He is also interested in further exploring the interplay between foraging behaviors and predation patterns for both species. Finally, he would like to look at their respective roles as carriers of Lyme disease and other pathogens.

Michael plans to compare small mammal data from UNDERC to other forested habitats in the Eastern U.S., such as Harvard Forest (HARV) in Massachusetts. Comparing data from different NEON field sites will provide insights into the habitat and climate variables that allow the different species of mice to thrive. "What's really great is that NEON collects all kinds of other data that we didn't have access to before. Now we can look at meteorological measurements, vegetation, soil chemistry and other data to see how everything may be interrelated."

Share

Related Posts:

Where Are Ground Beetle Populations at Risk?

October 12, 2023

Pinned Beetles

Diving Into the Future of Freshwater Forecasting

September 19, 2023

AIS data collection at CRAM

Digging Deeper into Carbon and Fungi in Eastern Forests

July 12, 2023

fungi on the forest floor
NEON Logo

Follow Us:

Join Our Newsletter

Get updates on events, opportunities, and how NEON is being used today.

Subscribe Now

Footer

  • My Account
  • About Us
  • Newsroom
  • Contact Us
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Careers
  • Code of Conduct

Copyright © Battelle, 2019-2020

The National Ecological Observatory Network is a major facility fully funded by the National Science Foundation.

Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.