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NITROGEN OUTPUTS OF SMALL MAMMALS FROM FECAL AND URINE DEPOSITION: IMPLICATIONS FOR NITROGEN CYCLING
Citation:
Clark, J. E., J. L. Parsons, E. C. Hellgren, E E. Jorgensen*, AND D. Leslie. NITROGEN OUTPUTS OF SMALL MAMMALS FROM FECAL AND URINE DEPOSITION: IMPLICATIONS FOR NITROGEN CYCLING. Presented at 2003 Annual Conf. of the Wildlife Society, Burlington, VT, September 06 - 10, 2003.
Impact/Purpose:
To inform the public.
Description:
The contribution of small mammals in nitrogen cycling is poorly understood and could have reverberations back to the producer community by maintaining or even magnifying increased nitrogen availability. Our objective was to model nitrogen outputs (deposition of feces and urine) of 5 species of small mammals in an old-field ecosystem and estimate the amount of fecal and urinary nitrogen deposited annually. To address this objective, we used models from laboratory studies combined with data from field studies to estimate dietary nitrogen and daily and annual nitrogen outputs from fecal and urine deposition of 5 small mammal species at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Center for Subsurface and Ecological Assessment Research (CSEAR) during 2000. The models accounted for monthly fluctuations in density and average mass of small-mammal populations. We estimated that small mammals deposited 1.15 and 3.21 kg N/ha/yr of fecal and urinary nitrogen (N), respectively, for a total contribution of 4.37 kg N/ha/yr. Hispid cotton rats (Sigmodon hispidus) accounted for >75% of the total nitrogen outputs by small mammals. Although the estimate of annual fecal and urinary nitrogen deposited by small mammals was likely small compared with the overall nitrogen budget at CSEAR, the rapid turnover rates of nutrients in small-mammal feces may introduce different temporal and spatial scales to nutrient cycling.