The harvest mouse, aptly named Micromys minutus, the minute mouse, is Britain's smallest rodent and also one of the most understudied. Before Ellie's started her Masters by Research supervised by Carl Soulsbury and I, the last comprehensive review of its status and distribution in Britain was chiefly the one by Stephen Harris in 1979 (although later works do exist).
Ellie set out to map out the distribution of the harvest mouse in Lincolnshire, a primarily agricultural county and one of the largest. In collaboration with the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, Ellie spent a very long time dissecting owl pellets and Longworth trapping to provide a current snapshot and compare it to previous records. The good news is that harvest mice appear to have persisted in the county. To help inform conservation action, Ellie also analysed the co-occurrence of harvest mice and other small mammals and various environmental landscape features. Finally, she used population viability analysis to assess the minimum population size and habitat area required for population viability, as well as overall population resilience. Ellie's work has been featured by the newsletter of the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, the bulletin of the Lincolnshire Naturalist Union and the 'Student of the month' highlight of the Mammal Society. Congratulations to Ellie!
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AuthorGraziella Iossa Archives
August 2023
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