Diversity within Small Mammal Communities of Forested Sites around Itasca State Park and Nearby Prairie Sites

Abstract

Biodiversity is a hot topic in science today because we are in a time of great urbanization and wild populations of animals are being threatened every day. Defined, biodiversity is the study of species richness (Blake et al. 2008). Fraser and Currie (1996) examine some hypothesizes that affect biodiversity. Those factors include area, available energy, environmental stress, environmental stability, disturbance, biological interactions and history factors. This experiment was designed to compare nine different habitats including burned deciduous, unburned deciduous, burned red pine, unburned red pine, aspen, bog, and three different prairies Rush, Coborn and Wauben DNR wildlife management area sites with two trap grids per prairie. Information recorded at every trap site included trap station, type of species, mass, sex, and individual marking for recapture purposes. A variety of forested habitats were chosen in order to observe any differences the environments might have on biodiversity.