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Monitoring Use of Artificial Burrows by Peromyscus maniculatus Abstract Hantaviruses are rodent-borne viruses that produce chronic infections in their reservoir hosts. Sin Nombre virus (SNV), a Hantavirus that causes the human illness, Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS), is of particular interest (Nichol et al. 1993). The primary reservoir of SNV was determined to be the deer mouse, Peromyscus maniculatus (Childs et al. 1994). Understanding of both the population biology and social behavior of deer mice is needed to understand host-virus dynamics (Mills and Childs 1998). Artificial underground burrows were used to study; mother-offspring relationships, sex-ratios, litter size, survival of field-born offspring, and the frequency of SNV antibody among individuals that share burrows. Preliminary data shows that female deer mice will use such structures as nest sites during the breeding season in Montana (Kuenzi and Arneson unpublished data). I continued monitoring the use of 30 artificial burrows by deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus) from May 2006 through present. I hypothesis that; data collected on age ratio, sex ratio and survival will not show significant variance from (Farrah Arneson 2004-05), in times of increased population the use of the artificial burrows by reproductive will increase, and frequency of SNV antibody will be statistically significant when compared to the frequency in the trappable population. Biography
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