Woodrat Body Size Data:
Body mass estimates were calculated from fecal pellet widths measured from middens. All body size data (pellet measurements, mass estimates, etc.) come from the Smith paleoecology lab in the department of Biology at the University of New Mexico. This data was used for my own educational purposes. Any results or conclusions regarding this data should not be reproduced. The raw data for this project is not published, and is not available for public use at this time.
To look at general trends in body size through time, I divided my midden data into the following research ages: Holocene (4,000 – 10,000 yrBP), late Pleistocene (10,000 – 20,000 yrBP), and Modern (<50 yrs old). Ages were based on radiocarbon dates of individual pellets.
Figure 1. A young male woodrat from Death Valley.
Figure 2. Voucher midden specimen.
PRISM Data:
Spatial climate data came in the form of rasters from the PRISM group at Oregon State University (www.prism.oregonstate.edu). I used the 1970 – 2001 30-arcsec average minimum January and average maximum July temperature datasets. I also used the 1970 – 2001 average annual precipitation dataset. I did not have access to paleoclimate data for this project, the 30-year averaged climate data was used for modern body size analyses only.