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Small Mammal Community Structure And Bait Preference In Missouri Prairie Patches, Sofia L. Orlando

MSU Graduate Theses

Ecological community studies provide insights on how species interact with biotic and abiotic factors in an ecosystem. Community assembly is dynamic and often mediated by stochastic processes or deterministic properties. Establishing patterns in community composition could help to predict the suitability of a patch, which is crucial in endangered ecosystems. Small mammals are a model indicator for community change as their populations experience perplexing fluctuations. Many mechanisms have been proposed to drive small mammal species composition, but inconsistencies in past studies warrant further investigation. A previous study on prairie patches in Missouri revealed that there was an unknown catalyst for …