The white-footed mouse (''Peromyscus leucopus'') is a
rodent
Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are na ...
native to
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
from
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
,
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
,
Labrador
, nickname = "The Big Land"
, etymology =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Canada
, subdivision_type1 = Province
, subdivision_name1 ...
, and the
Maritime Provinces
The Maritimes, also called the Maritime provinces, is a region of Eastern Canada consisting of three provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The Maritimes had a population of 1,899,324 in 2021, which makes up 5.1% of Ca ...
(excluding the island of
Newfoundland
Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...
) to the southwestern United States and Mexico.
[ In the Maritimes, its only location is a disjunct population in southern ]Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".
Most of the population are native Eng ...
. It is also known as the woodmouse, particularly in Texas.
Description
Adults are in length, not counting the tail, which can add another . A young adult weighs . While their maximum lifespan is 96 months, the mean life expectancy for the species is 45.5 months for females and 47.5 for males. In northern climates, the average life expectancy is 12–24 months. The species is similar to ''Peromyscus maniculatus
''Peromyscus maniculatus'' is a rodent native to eastern North America. It is most commonly called the eastern deer mouse; when formerly grouped with the western deer mouse (''P. sonoriensis''), it was referred to as the North American deermous ...
''.
White-footed Mouse, Quetico.jpg, In Quetico Provincial Park
Quetico Provincial Park is a large wilderness park in Northwestern Ontario, Canada, known for its excellent canoeing and fishing. The park shares its southern border with Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which is part of the ...
, Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
File:Rhus typhina-Peromyscus leucopus-female.jpg, Female on a staghorn sumac
''Rhus typhina'', the staghorn sumac, is a species of flowering plant in the family Anacardiaceae, native to eastern North America. It is primarily found in southeastern Canada, the northeastern and midwestern United States, and the Appalachian M ...
Behavior and diet
White-footed mice are omnivorous, and eat seeds and insects. They are timid and generally avoid humans, but they occasionally take up residence in ground-floor walls of homes and apartments, where they build nests and store food. White-footed mice also takes unoccupied old bird nests to build roofs to live their rest of their lives up in the trees.
Diseases
Like the North American deer mouse, this species may carry hantavirus
''Orthohantavirus'' is a genus of single-stranded, enveloped, negative-sense RNA viruses in the family ''Hantaviridae'' within the order ''Bunyavirales''. Members of this genus may be called orthohantaviruses or simply hantaviruses.
Orthohantav ...
es, which cause severe illness in humans. It has also been found to be a competent reservoir for the Lyme disease
Lyme disease, also known as Lyme borreliosis, is a vector-borne disease caused by the ''Borrelia'' bacterium, which is spread by ticks in the genus ''Ixodes''. The most common sign of infection is an expanding red rash, known as erythema migran ...
–causing spirochete, ''Borrelia burgdorferi
''Borrelia burgdorferi'' is a bacterial species of the spirochete class in the genus ''Borrelia'', and is one of the causative agents of Lyme disease in humans. Along with a few similar genospecies, some of which also cause Lyme disease, it make ...
''. The white-footed mouse is the favored host for the parasitic botfly ''Cuterebra fontinella
''Cuterebra fontinella'', the mouse bot fly, is a species of New World skin bot fly in the family Oestridae. ''C. fontinella'' is typically around in length with a black and yellow color pattern. ''C. fontinella'' develops by parasitizing nutrien ...
''.
Interactions with humans
The white-footed mouse is one of the most common mouse species used as laboratory mice
The laboratory mouse or lab mouse is a small mammal of the order Rodentia which is bred and used for scientific research or feeders for certain pets. Laboratory mice are usually of the species ''Mus musculus''. They are the most commonly used ...
after the house mouse
The house mouse (''Mus musculus'') is a small mammal of the order Rodentia, characteristically having a pointed snout, large rounded ears, and a long and almost hairless tail. It is one of the most abundant species of the genus '' Mus''. Althoug ...
, and their domesticated
Domestication is a sustained multi-generational relationship in which humans assume a significant degree of control over the reproduction and care of another group of organisms to secure a more predictable supply of resources from that group. A ...
version is called '' Peromyscus leucopus linville''. Such domesticated mice are also kept as pet
A pet, or companion animal, is an animal kept primarily for a person's company or entertainment rather than as a working animal, livestock, or a laboratory animal. Popular pets are often considered to have attractive appearances, intelligence, ...
s and have been bred to have many different colors.
Adaptations to urbanization in New York City
Native populations of ''P. leucopus'' in New York city
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
are isolated by dense human infrastructure and are largely confined to small urban forest islands such as Prospect Park and Central Park
Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West Side, Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the List of New York City parks, fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban par ...
. The limited gene flow caused by human activities and coupled with a bottleneck event in urban populations has been powerful enough to lead to evolutionary divergence of urban white-footed mice.
Metabolism
New York City mice exhibit local adaptations to diet-mediated selective pressures of urban habitats. Being opportunistic feeders, urban ''P. leucopus'' populations subside on food discarded by humans as a readily available source of nutriment, thereby consuming a lot more fat and carbohydrates than rural populations. Results of a landscape genomics study showed evidence of positive selection in mitochondrial genes of urban mice that are responsible for lipid and carbohydrate breakdown and digestion. Isolated ''P. leucopus'' populations inhabiting NYC parks show signs of molecular-level adaptation to urban food resources. The differential evolution of metabolic processes in urban ''P. leucopus'' populations is thought to contribute to their success and survival in NYC urban forests. Furthermore, the morphology of urban white-footed mice may be changing to adapt to alternative food sources. For instance, the teeth of white-footed mice in New York City are shorter than the teeth of rural mice. This change in physical traits could be explained by the availability of higher-quality food sources in urban forests, which negates the need for long, powerful teeth.
Detoxification
Urban populations of ''P. leucopus'' may be under unique selective pressures due to increased routine exposure to pollutants and toxins. A comparative transcriptome
The transcriptome is the set of all RNA transcripts, including coding and non-coding, in an individual or a population of cells. The term can also sometimes be used to refer to all RNAs, or just mRNA, depending on the particular experiment. The t ...
study found evidence of positive selection
In population genetics, directional selection, is a mode of negative natural selection in which an extreme phenotype is favored over other phenotypes, causing the allele frequency to shift over time in the direction of that phenotype. Under dir ...
acting on the genes of urban mice that play major roles in detoxification and xenobiotic
A xenobiotic is a chemical substance found within an organism that is not naturally produced or expected to be present within the organism. It can also cover substances that are present in much higher concentrations than are usual. Natural compo ...
metabolism. The genes under positive selection pressure include CYPA1A and Hsp90, which are known to be involved in the metabolism of foreign substances and drugs. High concentrations of heavy metals such as lead and mercury in NYC park soils pose a unique selective pressure that likely led urban populations of ''P. leucopus'' to develop metabolic adaptations to the toxicity of urban forest environments. Furthermore, exposure of pollutants is known to induce hypermethylation
In the chemical sciences, methylation denotes the addition of a methyl group on a substrate, or the substitution of an atom (or group) by a methyl group. Methylation is a form of alkylation, with a methyl group replacing a hydrogen atom. These t ...
of DNA''.'' A study showed that in urban white-footed mice, a gene coding for a demethylase
Demethylases are enzymes that remove methyl (CH3) groups from nucleic acids, proteins (particularly histones), and other molecules. Demethylases are important epigenetic proteins, as they are responsible for transcriptional regulation of the genom ...
enzyme is under positive selection. This means that urban populations of white-food mice that live in highly polluted environments uniquely benefit from an active demethylase enzyme that removes methyl groups from DNA.
Reproduction
City-dwelling white-footed mouse populations are densely concentrated in isolated urban parks, which makes sperm competition a particularly powerful source of selection in urban environments. Genetic studies have identified signs of molecular-level evolution of reproductive processes in urban white-footed mouse populations. Genes associated with spermatogenesis
Spermatogenesis is the process by which haploid spermatozoa develop from germ cells in the seminiferous tubules of the testis. This process starts with the mitotic division of the stem cells located close to the basement membrane of the tubule ...
, sperm locomotion, and sperm-egg interactions in urban mice show a divergent pattern of regulation compared to their rural counterparts. Therefore, the intensified sperm competition of dense mouse populations in urban forests has driven them to develop faster, more efficient sperm than that of rural mice.
Immunity
Urban environments are saturated with large numbers of novel and familiar pathogens that are introduced by transportation, traffic, and trade. The elevated occurrence of pathogens is a driver of directional selection in which genetic variants that more efficiently resist infection are favored. The outcome of this selection can be seen in genetic divergence between urban and rural ''P. leucopus'' populations at loci that regulate the innate immune response and inflammation. Furthermore, a study has found evidence of positive selection acting on genes that modulate pathogen recognition in urban mice. Immunoregulatory proteins that are found on T lymphocytes
A T cell is a type of lymphocyte. T cells are one of the important white blood cells of the immune system and play a central role in the adaptive immune response. T cells can be distinguished from other lymphocytes by the presence of a T-cell rec ...
are overexpressed in urban mice when compared to rural populations. These findings suggest that the immune systems of NYC white-footed mice may be evolving to recognize and respond to pathogens more efficiently. The divergence between rural and urban white-footed mice is especially prominent due to impeded gene flow between these populations, which is caused by landscape barriers including roads, highways, and pedestrian sidewalks. Monitoring the strength of immune defenses in ''P. leucopus'' is of special importance because they are commonly infected with dangerous pathogens such as hantaviruses
''Orthohantavirus'' is a genus of single-stranded, enveloped, negative-sense RNA viruses in the family '' Hantaviridae'' within the order ''Bunyavirales''. Members of this genus may be called orthohantaviruses or simply hantaviruses.
Orthohantav ...
and ''Borrelia burgdorferi
''Borrelia burgdorferi'' is a bacterial species of the spirochete class in the genus ''Borrelia'', and is one of the causative agents of Lyme disease in humans. Along with a few similar genospecies, some of which also cause Lyme disease, it make ...
''.
See also
* Monongahela virus
Monongahela virus (MGLV) is a single-stranded, negative-sense ''Orthohantavirus'' virus of zoonotic origin that causes hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.
Discovery of virus
Monongahela virus was first detected in '' Peromyscus maniculatus nubiter ...
References
General references
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* Ostfeld RS, Miller MC & Hazler KR (1996) Causes and consequences of tick (''Ixodes scapularis'') burdens on white-footed mice (''Peromyscus leucopus''). J Mammal ; 77:266–273.
* Ostfeld RS, Schauber EM, Canham CD, Keesing F & al. (2001) Effects of acorn production and mouse abundance on abundance and ''Borrelia burgdorferi'' infection prevalence of nymphal ''Ixodes scapularis'' ticks. Vector Borne Zoonot Dis ; 1:55–63
* Pederson AB, Grieves TJ (2008) 'he interaction of parasites and resource cause crashes in wild mouse population. J Anim Ecol ; 77:370–377
* Schwan, TG, Burgdorfer, W, Schrumpf, ME, Karstens, RH. (1988
The urinary bladder, a consistent source of ''Borrelia burgdorferi'' in experimentally infected white-footed mice (''Peromyscus leucopus'')
J Clin Microbiol ; 26:893–895
*
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External links
State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry
White-footed Mouse
CanadianFauna.com
Canadian Biodiversity Website
*
{{Taxonbar, from=Q732863
Mammals described in 1818
Peromyscus
Taxa named by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque