Discarded Bottles as a Source of Shrew Species Distributional Data along an Elevational Gradient in the Southern Appalachians
Discarded bottles were inspected for skeletal remains at 220 roadside sites along the southeastern Blue Ridge escarpment of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia as a technique to examine the regional distributions of shrews. Vertebrate remains were found at approximately 63% of our study site...
| Veröffentlicht in: | Southeastern Naturalist. - Eagle Hill Institute. - 9(2010), 4, Seite 781-794 |
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| Format: | Online-Aufsatz |
| Sprache: | English |
| Veröffentlicht: |
2010
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| Zugriff auf das übergeordnete Werk: | Southeastern Naturalist |
| Schlagworte: | Biological sciences Physical sciences |
| Zusammenfassung: | Discarded bottles were inspected for skeletal remains at 220 roadside sites along the southeastern Blue Ridge escarpment of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia as a technique to examine the regional distributions of shrews. Vertebrate remains were found at approximately 63% of our study sites and in 4.5% of the open bottles we examined. Bottles collected a total of 553 specimens of small mammals representing 5 species of shrews and 6 species of rodents. The Northern Short-tailed Shrew (Blarina brevicauda) and the Smoky Shrew (Sorex fumeus) were abundant and distributed throughout the region, although Smoky Shrews were more strongly associated with mesic environments and higher altitudes (x = 940.1 m ± 25.4 m). The Masked Shrew (S. cinereus) and the Southeastern Shrew (S. longirostris) exhibited contiguous allopatry, with Masked Shrews occurring exclusively in mesic forest habitats at high elevations (x̄= 1126.7 ± 27.4 m), and Southeastern Shrews occurring only in xeric habitats at lower elevations (x̄ = 503.7 ± 64.9 m). Our study demonstrates the utility of discarded bottles as a quick and effective alternative method for surveying shrews, without the added mortality that occurs from pitfall-or snap-trapping. |
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| ISSN: | 19385412 |