A Population Study of House Mice (Mus musculus) Following a Period of Local Abundance

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Abstract
235 mice were live-trapped in a small room of a grain and seed storehouse at Davis, California, during 1942. Evidence obtained by marking and releasing individual mice suggested that the population of the room varied from day to day but showed a general decline from Jan. to apparent extinction in May. During the decline, the population came to consist largely of subadult, non-breeding mice, and the sex ratio was greatly distorted in favor of females. Young mice apparently failed to gain normally in wt., and the population seemed to be in a poor state of health, due perhaps to starvation. Concurrent trapping outdoors indicated a less dense population there, which was presumably the source of the few individuals which appeared in the room in the following autumn.

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