Semester

Summer

Date of Graduation

2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MS

College

Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design

Department

Wildlife and Fisheries Resources

Committee Chair

James T. Anderson

Committee Co-Chair

Christopher T. Rota

Committee Member

Mack W. Frantz

Abstract

Wetland restoration is commonly practiced as part of conservation programs or wetland mitigation, which attempts to offset human-created losses of natural wetlands. However, because of the intrinsic and human-derived value of wetlands, it is critical to determine whether these wetlands truly act similarly to natural wetlands. One role of wetlands is to provide habitat for a diverse array of wildlife species. Small mammals are often overlooked taxa in wetland restoration efforts. However, they are essential to the wetland system because they influence vegetation and are prey for higher trophic level wildlife. I discuss considerations of restored wetlands, wildlife responses to these wetlands, and the role of small mammals in wetlands in Chapter 1.

In Chapter 2, I devise a study to determine whether small mammal communities are similar in restored and natural wetlands. I assess apparent abundance, occupancy, relative density, mass, diversity, richness, evenness, and community composition of small mammal communities from 14 restored wetlands and 12 natural wetlands in West Virginia, USA, sampled from June–August of 2020 and 2021. Over 10,060 trap nights, I captured deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus), white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus), meadow voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus), northern short-tailed shrews (Blarina brevicauda), meadow jumping mice (Zapus hudsonius), and eastern chipmunks (Tamias striatus) at both wetland types, and woodland jumping mice (Napaeozapus insignis), masked shrews (Sorex cinereus), and one southern flying squirrel (Glaucomys volans) at exclusively natural wetlands. I found all aspects to be similar between wetland types, apart from apparent abundance of deer mice, which was higher in natural wetlands (P

In chapter 3, I determine the features of restored wetlands that most affect small mammal communities. Specifically, I examined the effects of age and environmental variables in 14 restored wetlands spanning the three ecoregions in West Virginia. I determined the apparent abundance of deer mice (P = 0.01), white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus) (P

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