1. MICROHABITAT USE OF BLARINA CAROLINENSIS (SOUTHERN SHORT-TAILED SHREW) IN EAST TEXAS.
- Author
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Ladine, T. A. and Muñoz, A.
- Subjects
- *
ECOLOGICAL niche , *SOUTHERN short-tailed shrew , *BIOTIC communities - Abstract
A mark-recapture study from 8 October 2002 through 21 December 2002 was conducted to assess the microhabitat use of Blarina carolinensis (southern short-tailed shrew). Animals were captured during three intervals of 21 days with two 10-day intervening periods when the trapping grid was closed. The study site was located in a mixed pine-hardwood forest in an urban ecosystem near the campus of East Texas Baptist University, Marshall, Texas. Using a bootstrap estimation, density of B. carolinensis was estimated to be 0.58 ± 0.56 shrews per hectare. Habitat was assessed at three scales (1 m², 5 m², and 10 m²) centered on each trap site. Variation of understory cover and total understory cover were found to be important at all three scales. However, stepwise analysis at each scale indicated different habitat variables to be important. Predictive power of the variables determining sites where B. carolinensis were captured for each of the selected scales was 1m² (r² = 0.3198, P = 0.1253), 5 m² (r² = 0.3249, P = 0.0084), and 10 m² ( r² = 0.3177, P = 0.0203). Principal components analysis showed sites where B. carolinensis were not captured to be outliers at the 1 m² scale with no discernable patterns or limited grouping in status of captures at the other two scales. The first three components at the 1m², 5m², and 10 m² accounted for 83.6%, 84.0%, and 81.1% of the variation, for each scale, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2010