TJ Hafliger

he/him

Education: Majoring in ecology & environmental biology

Mentor: Andrew Hope, Ph.D.

McNair Project: Assessing Small Mammal Communities of the Gila National Forest in New Mexico

The project purpose was to sample new areas to survey for the endangered Zapus luteus luteus (New Mexico meadow jumping mouse). A secondary goal was to perform field surveys consisting of habitat data collection and trapping efforts at 8 different sites throughout the Gila National Forest. Ultimately, we did not detect any Z. l. luteus in our field efforts but our surveys provided insight into available habitat and habitat suitability for small mammals generally across sampled sites. Zapus l. luteus is associated with a very specific habitat which is riparian areas within the arid Southwest. If this species is not detected in (and potentially extirpated from) areas that should support populations, it can give an indication of the health of the ecosystem. With the habitat data and other small mammal data collected from the field sampling efforts of our group we were still able to use the data collected to assess the small mammal community dynamics within the Gila National Forest, NM. We used a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to determine what environmental factors were the most influential between the 8 different sample sites. Then box and whisker plots were generated to demonstrate the most influential abiotic factors. Histograms were also used to compare the different sites, small mammal abundance, and small mammal richness. Finally, we used Shannon-Wiener Index to standardize and compare the different sites, number of individuals, and number of species detected while trapping.