Date of Award
8-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Wildlife and Fisheries Biology
Committee Chair/Advisor
David Jachowski
Committee Member
Kyle Barrett
Committee Member
Susan Loeb
Abstract
Small mammals play important roles in healthy forests, but we still know very little about many of the rare and state-listed species living in the Blue Ridge Mountains of South Carolina. Traditional surveys are expensive and time-consuming, so we tested a newer, camera-based method called AHDriFT. From 2024 to 2026, we set up 60 camera systems across high-elevation forests to track six state-listed species: the Carolina red-backed vole, woodland jumping mouse, eastern woodrat, masked shrew, pygmy shrew, and eastern spotted skunk. We detected all six target species and conducted occupancy modeling for four. We found spotted skunk occupancy increased near water, eastern woodrat occupancy increased in deciduous forests, and pygmy shrew occupancy increased with deermouse activity. This confirmed that AHDriFT works well for monitoring these hard-to-find animals. We then asked whether small mammals could act as a sentinel for tracking the health of other wildlife taxa, namely invertebrates, herpetofauna, and small predators, since monitoring every species or taxa is impractical. Using the same camera sites, we compared small mammal data to these other taxa. We found that habitat features like shrub cover and distance to water mostly explained the other communities better than small mammals did. Only small predator diversity was meaningfully linked to small mammal diversity. We concluded that this ecosystem is too complex for small mammals alone to serve as a reliable indicator and that monitoring multiple taxa is necessary.
Recommended Citation
Steen, Katelyn, "Habitat Associations of Small Mammals and their Role as Sentinels for Biodiversity in the Southern Blue Ridge" (2026). All Theses. 4846.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_theses/4846