Small mammals provide an important prey base for many charismatic wildlife species including eagles and other birds of prey for whom Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge (RMA) was originally created.

As a superfund cleanup site, RMA has been the site of extensive remediation and restoration activities. An important consideration for these projects was the short, and the long-term impacts to small mammal communities where the goal is to replace non-native vegetation with native grasses and forbs.

Changes in small mammal abundance and species composition in restoration and control plots have been monitored since 1997 by means of live-trapping with the goal of measuring the effectiveness and recovery of these restoration projects.

Variation in small mammal abundance and species composition appear related to both restoration efforts and inter-annual variation in weather. Both restoration plots experienced declines in the above measures following the initial alteration of soil and vegetation. Yet, abundance of some species and species richness has also declined in control plots probably due to trends in weather, specifically drought. Collection of climate, vegetation, and control data, from these plots is essential in interpretation of the results for assessing whether restoration projects attain success criteria for providing wildlife habitat to small mammals and perhaps other species.

Last Updated: 3/24/09