Censusing Mouse Populations by Means of Tracking

Abstract

A new approach based on mark—and—sample tracking is presented that may substantially reduce errors in censusing small mammals. A test is included to check the underlying assumption of equal tracking from marked and unmarked mice. A procedure for applying the tracking approach to estimating births and deaths between samples is also presented. The tracking approach was demonstrated on a population of Peromyscus maniculatus. The number of tracks left nightly by males was significantly greater than by females. However, the tracking rate was about the same each night for all individuals of the same sex, even though tracking fluctuated from night to night. The test revealed no strong difference in the tracking rates of marked and unmarked mice. It is concluded that population estimates based on tracking can be highly precise and are far superior to estimates based on trapping alone.

The Rise of the Concept of Scale in Ecology

“…In a digital version of the associated journals Ecology and Ecological Monographs, the term spatial scale made its first appearance in the early 1970s (Marten 1972, Wiens 1973. The term appears with increasing frequency in the late 1970s (Figure 3a).…”

Techniques for trapping and tracking stoats (Mustela erminea); a review, and a new system

“…Lord et al (1970) used a square white tile coated on one half with a mixture of printing ink and mineral spirits, but again the prints were not permanent, and furthermore the medium had a strong odour and had to be removed for re-setting by washing in petrol. Nearly all other methods of 'tracking' use remote sensing devices, either electrical (e.g., Marten 1972a, Taylor 1975 or involving the implanting of foreign materials into the bodies of animals (e.g., as by Kulik et al 1967, Stoddart 1970, Randolph 1973, rather than recording of footprints, and are therefore outside the scope of this review.…”

Morphometric identification of small mammal footprints from ink tracking tunnels in the Brazilian Cerrado

“…The tunnels can be used in studies that need presence/absence data or an activity index: inventories, distribution, dispersion, daily activity, and habitat/microhabitat selection, besides ecomorphological studies. If individuals are marked by toe-clipping it is possible to study home range and social behavior (JUSTICE 1961, SHEPPE 1965, BROWN 1969, MARTEN 1972, LIEBERMAN 1973, KING & EDGAR 1977. Morphometrical analyses using footprints could be performed to access intraspecific variations (age, sex and geographic variations).…”

“…The over-tracking problem was observed in other track studies (MARTEN 1972, KING & EDGAR 1977 and could be minimized by changing the paper more frequently, by not baiting the tunnel in areas with high mammal activity, or by letting the animals remove the bait. …”