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|                             Jornada Information Managment System                                 |
|                                  Project Documentation Form                                      |
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| All Jornada Basin LTER (NSF/NMSU) and Jornada Experimental Range (USDA/ARS) research projects    |
| must be documented on the following form.  All research projects under the auspices of the       |
| Jornada Basin LTER (NSF/NMSU) and Jornada Experimental Range (USDA/ARS) will be described by the |
| following standardized form.  Information that is not available at this time, must be included   |
| when it becomes available. In addition, associated data sets must also be described on Dataset   |
| Documentation Forms and all attributes collected for each data set must also be described on an  |
| Attribute Documentation Form.  All forms are available online at http://jornada-www.nmsu.edu and |
| from the data manager.  See data manager for any questions regarding this form.                  |
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1) Project title (descriptive title including 'what, when, where' information):
Small mammal trapping (LTER-II)

2) Responsible investigator:

Start      End
Date       Date       Name
---------- ---------- -----------------------------------------------------------
06/05/1990 11/02/1990 Walter G. Whitford

3) Date research commenced (mm/dd/yyyy or UNKNOWN):
06/05/1990

4) Date research terminated (mm/dd/yyyy, ONGOING, or UNKNOWN):
11/02/1990

5) PI funding the research:

Start      End
Date       Date       Name
---------- ---------- -----------------------------------------------------------
06/05/1990 11/02/1990 Jornada LTER-II

6) Additional investigator(s):

Start      End
Date       Date       Name
---------- ---------- -----------------------------------------------------------
06/05/1990 11/02/1990 David C. Lightfoot

7) Funding agency (ex. EPA, NSF, USDA):
NSF

8) Funding cycle (Ex. LTER II, FY2001, N/A):
LTER II

9) Informative abstract (Describe research project completely. Include project
   OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS.):
Objectives.  Desertification is hypothesized to have altered
the spatial and temporal availability of resources required by
the biota.  Results of desertification on the Jornada include
changes to shrub dominated communities and major soil changes.
We hypothesize that these shifts in vegetation have changed
resources temporally for many of the consumers.  If grassland
systems respond to rainfall without significant lags, but shrub
systems do not, then consumer species should reflect these
differences.  In addition, shifts from grassland to shrubland
results in greater structural heterogeneity of the habitats.  We
have hypothesized that consumer populations, diversity, and
densities of some consumers will be higher in grasslands than in
shrublands.  Diversity and/or densities are hypothesized to be
related to the NPP of the sites.  Data will be collected for the
duration of the LTER program in order to provide data to test
these hypotheses.

Methods and locations.  Pitfall trap grids have been
installed at three creosotebush sites, three grassland sites,
three mesquite sites, and  two tarbush sites.  Each grid consists
of four by five rows of traps at 10 meter intervals.  A mammal
live-trap is placed next to each pitfall trap.  Traps are opened
for one week in the late spring and one week in the late summer.

Small mammals are removed from the traps and assigned
individual numbers by removing a single digit from each foot.
Species, sex, and measurement data are taken for each animal.

10) Dataset(s) associated with project (dataset ID will be filled in by data manager):

                Documentation
    Dataset ID  File Name         Dataset Title (from data set documentation form)
    ----------  ----------------  ------------------------------------------------------------------
                SMAMMALS.DSD      Small mammal trapping (LTER-II)

11) Publications resulting from project research:
<NONE>

12) Comments (Include any comments here that more fully describe this project):

Date       Comments by               Comments
---------- ------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------
<NONE>

13) History Log (history of changes made to this document):

Date       Log Entry by              Log Entry
---------- ------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------
06/02/1990 John P. Anderson          Project documentation completed by investigator



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|                             END OF PROJECT DOCUMENTATION FORM                                    |
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