Black rats on two Galapagos Islands, three subspecies of deer mice on three California Channel Islands, and white-footed mice in the Chicago area were recently discovered to have all changed shape in the same way over the past 100 years. This discovery was made by measuring the bodies and skulls of 290 museum specimens collected over time in the same areas. The rodents' bodies grew longer, their noses grew longer and broader, and their skulls grew and longer and shallower. Because these six rodent populations are from three very separated and wildly different habitats, perhaps these changes are happening everywhere. This project will seek to confirm these preliminary findings by measuring and analyzing an additional 1680 rodent museum specimens, collected over the last 100 years on six continents.
If something is indeed causing rodents to change in the same way all over the world for the last 100 years, we need to look for the causes. Subsequent research may well result in the discovery of previously unsuspected environmental factors affecting humans as well as rodents. An additional benefit is furthering increased partnerships and networks between universities and natural history museums. The results from this work could quickly and greatly increase academic interest in using museum collections.
