The Golden Mouse

No group of mammals has more species than Rodentia. With close to 2300 recognized species throughout the world, Rodents comprise about forty-two percent of all living mammalian species. These mammals can have major impacts on human life-they can be major crop depredators, vectors of disease, and important models for scientific research. When we hear the familiar phrase charismatic mammalian megafauna, we immediately envision large, powerful carnivores like lions and grizzly bears, or sleek, graceful ungulates like deer and antelope. But we rarely hear about charismatic mammalian microfauna, such as mice. The golden mouse is considered by many to be the most charismatic and ecologically unique of the mammalian microfauna.

This volume is the first attempt to draw together what is known about the golden mouse ranging from systematics, natural history, and population dynamics to coexistence, nesting behavior, and semi-arboreal living in managed and natural ecological systems. In this scholarly work, the golden mouse is used as a model to explore conceptual issues in ecology across levels of organization from organism to landscape, integrating reductionism and holistic ecological science. Chapters also include ecological processes such as behavior, energetics, evolution, and regulation that transcend these levels of organization. Future integrative research studies across levels of organization also are addressed.

The Golden Mouse: Natural History.- A Model Species for Addressing Questions Across Levels of Organization.- Rarity: An Unusual Niche Among Small Mammals.- A Model for Energy Efficiency.- An Ecological (Oikos) Engineer.- Population Dynamics.- Coexistence: Competition or Mutualism?.- Benefits of ?Living on the Second Floor?.- Ecosystem Dynamics.- Landscape Dynamics.- Landscape Aesthetics.- Future Challenges and Opportunities.