SGS-LTER Long-Term Monitoring Project: Body weights of rodents captured during SGS-LTER live-trapping on the Central Plains Experimental Range, Nunn, Colorado, USA 1994 -2011, ARS Study Number 118

This data package was produced by researchers working on the Shortgrass Steppe Long Term Ecological Research (SGS-LTER) Project, administered at Colorado State University. Long-term datasets and background information (proposals, reports, photographs, etc.) on the SGS-LTER project are contained in a comprehensive project collection within the Digital Collections of Colorado (http://digitool.library.colostate.edu/R/?func=collections&collection_id=3429). The data table and associated metadata document, which is generated in Ecological Metadata Language, may be available through other repositories serving the ecological research community and represent components of the larger SGS-LTER project collection. Additional information and referenced materials can be found: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/83452. Body size is a fundamental biological measurement that is known to be related to an organism's physiology, life-history and ecology. Estimates of body size are also widely used in comparative evolutionary and ecological studies, including food web and diet studies that require estimates of biomass. Beginning in 1994, small mammals are live-trapped twice each year on the three grassland and three shrubland trapping webs. Individuals are weighed (to nearest 0.5 g using a Pesola spring scale) when first captured during a given trapping session but not upon recapture during the same session. Weights are calculated by subtracting the weight of an empty capture (ziploc) bag from the weight of animal in the bag. Individuals are classified into age classes (adult, subadult, juvenile) in the field based on a combination of size and pelage characteristics. This dataset gives means, standard deviations, minimum and maximum values for body weight, in grams, of small mammals captured between September 1994 and September 2008. All sites and sampling periods were combined. Most individuals (~93%) were classified as new captures, although a few individuals that were captured multiple times across different trapping sessions may appear in the dataset more than once. Values may differ from estimates calculated using the entire capture dataset because age and weight data were screened more closely to omit obvious errors and outliers.

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