Use of woody ground litter as a substrate for travel by the white- footed mouse, Peromyscus leucopus

J. V. Planz, G. L. Kirkland

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

In a middle-aged, deciduous forest in southcentral Pennsylvania, there was a significant decrease in the number of captures of white-footed mice on cleared plots between pre- and post-litter removal phases of the study. Although woody ground litter comprised only 8.2% of the ground cover, half the total distance travelled by P. leucopus was on woody ground litter. Use of woody ground cover for travel by P. leucopus may represent a trade-off between the risks of predation from rattlesnakes Crotalus horridus that use ground litter as ambush sites and nocturnal raptors that are more common and employ auditory cues to locate prey. -from Authors

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)118-121
Number of pages4
JournalCanadian Field-Naturalist
Volume106
Issue number1
StatePublished - 1 Jan 1992

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