Small mammal activity patterns

Abstract

Multiple regression techniques were used to derive a 14-term representation of the effects of temperature, time of day, number of days since baiting, wind velocity, and time of year on small mammal activity. This representation described 42 percent of the variability in activity observed for 837 hours during the summer of 1965. Trends in activity were found to agree with trends observed in 1964. Other factors hypothesized to affect small mammal activity include activities of predators, parental care and breeding behavior, precipitation, and residual effects of previous environmental conditions. Extreme weather conditions probably affect activity enough to bias small mammal trapping experiments.