Hello! You may be here because you found one of our live-traps, like the ones pictured on the right. This is a research study being conducted by biologists at Iowa State University. 

These live-traps are used for studying small mammals, mostly mice and voles. Please do not disturb the traps! When we are gone, the traps are in a locked open position and tampering with them may cause them to trigger, which could trap an animal inside without our knowledge. 

What species are we studying?
The main species monitored here is the white-footed deer mouse, with the scientific name Peromyscus leucopus. Mice from genus Peromyscus are generally called "deer mice" and are native to North America. (They are different than house mice which are from genus Mus, and came over on European ships during the colonial period. Those typical white lab mice are also strains of the same house mouse species, Mus musculus). Deer mice can be recognized by their tawny brown coloration with a white belly, and they tend to be larger than house mice. 

What questions are being asked with this research? 
We are tracking populations of deer mice in different environment types across Iowa and examining how many individuals live in a given area, how fast they reproduce (and how fast populations grow), and if they show any changes in their behavior or physiology (internal biology) in response to these different environmental and social conditions. Mice in isolated forest patches may not be able to disperse, and so may be living in a super-competitive environment. Think of a group of humans stuck on an island where nobody can leave. How does this change how aggressive the mice are? Does it change how much they reproduce? Can we see changes in their hormones or their epigenome?  

Why study mice and voles? 
You may think... "What's the point of studying mice? Who cares about what's going on with them?" Ecologists use wild mice and voles as model systems for many of the same reasons that biologists working in the lab use mice as model systems. One reason is that they are mammals (like humans) and so share a lot of biological similarities with us, including the same hormones and a lot of the same genetic material. Mice also have a relatively fast generation time, meaning they mature, reproduce, and die in a short period of time compared to many other larger species, so a great deal of information can be gathered about their entire lives. We are studying these mouse populations to examine how animals are affected by environmental and social conditions, to better understand how population dynamics work in the natural world, and to think about possible implications for human biology as well! 


All research here is done with the approval of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, local parks landowners, and the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.