Discarded Bottles as a Source of Shrew Species Distributional Data along an Elevational Gradient in the Southern Appalachians

摘要: Abstract Discarded bottles were inspected for skeletal remains at 220 roadside sites along the southeastern Blue Ridge escarpment of North Carolina, South and Georgia as a technique to examine regional distributions shrews. Vertebrate found approximately 63% our study in 4.5% open we examined. Bottles collected total 553 specimens small mammals representing 5 species shrews 6 rodents. The Northern Short-tailed Shrew (Blarina brevicauda) Smoky (Sorex fumeus) abundant distributed throughout region, although Shrews more strongly associated with mesic environments higher altitudes ( = 940.1 m ± 25.4 m). Masked (S. cinereus) Southeastern longirostris) exhibited contiguous allopatry, occurring exclusively forest habitats high elevations 1126.7 27.4 m), only xeric lower ele...