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Hantavirus outbreaks in the American Southwest are hypothesized to be driven by episodic seasonal events of high precipitation, promoting rapid increases in virus-reservoir rodent species that then move across the landscape from high quality montane forested habitats (refugia), eventually over-running human residences and increasing disease risk. In this study, the velocities of rodents and virus diffusion wave propagation and retraction were documented and quantified in the sky-islands of northern New Mexico and related to rodent-virus relationships in refugia versus nonrefugia habitats. Deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus) refugia populations exhibited higher Sin Nombre Virus (SNV) infection prevalence than nonrefugia populations. The velocity of propagating diffusion waves of Peromyscus from montane to lower grassland habitats was measured at [Formula: see text] m/day (SE), with wave retraction velocities of [Formula: see text] m/day. SNV infection diffusion wave propagation velocity within a deer mouse population averaged [Formula: see text] m/day, with a faster retraction wave velocity of [Formula: see text] m/day. A spatio-temporal analysis of human Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS) cases during the initial 1993 epidemic revealed a positive linear relationship between the time during the epidemic and the distance of human cases from the nearest deer mouse refugium, with a landscape diffusion wave velocity of [Formula: see text] m/day ([Formula: see text]). These consistent diffusion propagation wave velocity results support the traveling wave component of the HPS outbreak theory and can provide information on space–time constraints for future outbreak forecasts. 

ABSTRACT The fundamental trade‐off between current and future reproduction has long been considered to result in a tendency for species that can grow large to begin reproduction at a larger size. Due to the prolonged time required to reach maturity, estimates of tree maturation size remain very rare and we lack a global view on the generality and the shape of this trade‐off. Using seed production from five continents, we estimate tree maturation sizes for 486 tree species spanning tropical to boreal climates. Results show that a species' maturation size increases with maximum size, but in a non‐proportional way: the largest species begin reproduction at smaller sizes than would be expected if maturation were simply proportional to maximum size. Furthermore, the decrease in relative maturation size is steepest in cold climates. These findings on maturation size drivers are key to accurately represent forests' responses to disturbance and climate change. 

This file contains mark/recapture trapping data collected from 1989-present on permanently established web trapping arrays at sites on the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge in central New Mexico.. The trapping sites are representative of Chihuahuan Desert Grassland, Chihuahuan Desert Shrubland, Pinyon-Juniper Woodland, Juniper Savanna, Plains-Mesa Sand Scrub and Blue Grama Grassland.  Not all sites have been trapped for the entire period: goatdraw (1992-2008), blue grama (2002-2004) rsgrass (1989-1998), rslarrea (1989-2009), two2 (1989-1998), savanna (1999-2002). Only 2 sites have been continuously been sampled since 1989 (5pgrass and 5plarrea).  At each site 3 trapping webs are sampled for 3 consecutive nights in spring and fall. Each trapping web consists of 145 rebar stakes numbered from 1-145. There are 148 traps deployed on each web: 12 along each of 12 spokes radiating out from a central point (stake #145) plus 4 traps placed at the center of each web. The wide format facilitates community composition and species diversity analyses. Wide format has been reshaped so that the count data for each species are presented in a unique column. Data are summarized for each trapping web X trapping bout to present the mean number of animals per trap per night of the trapping bout. Wide format fills zeros for species that were not captured on a web during a given trapping bout. Long format facilitates filtering the dataset to a particular small mammal species of interest, but this format requires the addition of zeros to be functional for accurate data analysis requiring counts of animals.