Small Mammal Mark-Recapture Population Dynamics at Core Research Sites at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico (1989-present)

This file contains mark/recapture trapping data collected from 1989-present on permanently established web trapping arrays at sites on the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge in central New Mexico.. The trapping sites are representative of Chihuahuan Desert Grassland, Chihuahuan Desert Shrubland, Pinyon-Juniper Woodland, Juniper Savanna, Plains-Mesa Sand Scrub and Blue Grama Grassland. Not all sites have been trapped for the entire period: goatdraw (1992-2008), blue grama (2002-2004) rsgrass (1989-1998), rslarrea (1989-2009), two2 (1989-1998), savanna (1999-2002). Only 2 sites have been continuously been sampled since 1989 (5pgrass and 5plarrea). At each site 3 trapping webs are sampled for 3 consecutive nights in spring and fall. Each trapping web consists of 145 rebar stakes numbered from 1-145. There are 148 traps deployed on each web: 12 along each of 12 spokes radiating out from a central point (stake #145) plus 4 traps placed at the center of each web. The wide format facilitates community composition and species diversity analyses. Wide format has been reshaped so that the count data for each species are presented in a unique column. Data are summarized for each trapping web X trapping bout to present the mean number of animals per trap per night of the trapping bout. Wide format fills zeros for species that were not captured on a web during a given trapping bout. Long format facilitates filtering the dataset to a particular small mammal species of interest, but this format requires the addition of zeros to be functional for accurate data analysis requiring counts of animals.