Title

Dispersal Of The Cotton Rat, Sigmodon-Hispidus

Comments

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Abbreviated Journal Title

J. Mammal.

Keywords

Zoology

Abstract

Dispersal of cotton rats was examined over an annual cycle of abundance by removal trapping in pine flatwoods. All cotton rats live-trapped at biweekly intervals on two 0.49 ha grids were removed, whereas rats on an adjacent control grid were tagged and released alive on site. The null hypothesis was that dispersing cotton rats would represent a random sample of sex and weight (age) classes from the control population. Likewise, it was hypothesized that the proportion dispersing would be independent of population density on the control grid. Dispersing animals were most prevalent on the removal grids during November and December 1979 when numbers of cotton rats on the control grid were increasing. Dispersal appeared to be density proportional rather than density dependent. The proportion of individuals removed according to weight class was not significantly different among grids. Sex ratios of cotton rats on the control and removal grids were not different from 50:50 (P > 0.05). The results do not reject the rank-order template hypothesis as the dispersal strategy of the cotton rat.

Journal Title

Journal of Mammalogy

Volume

64

Issue/Number

2

Publication Date

1-1-1983

Document Type

Article

Language

English

First Page

210

Last Page

217

WOS Identifier

WOS:A1983QR82900002

ISSN

0022-2372

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