Data on deer mouse and vole plague vaccination and captures in central New Mexico, 2019-2021

Our study was conducted from 2019-2021 in Lincoln National Forest, New Mexico. We live trapped deer mice and two species of voles in Sherman traps, mostly at nighttime, from June-October 2019 and June-September 2020-2021. We marked each rodent with ear tags and a passive integrated transponder for permanent identification. We used an F1 antigen vaccine to vaccinate some individuals against plague. Specifically, we injected vaccine to the first animal processed within each species, age group (adult or juvenile based on size), sex, trap session, and plot and then alternated between vaccine and placebo injections thereafter. We administered a placebo injection, lacking the F1 antigen, to the remaining individuals, which functioned as experimental baselines. Trapping was completed at 6 sites in the forest, including a mountain site called Buck Mountain.

The first dataset (Mouse Survival Data 2019-2021.xlsx) includes deer mice only ("SPECIES" = deer mouse). Each line of data is for an individual mouse. The variable "YEAR" indicates the first year of capture for an individual mouse (2019, 2020, 2021). Additional variables include "SEX" (female, male) and "TREATMENT" (vaccine, placebo). The dataset also includes a capture history ("CAPTUREHISTORY") for each mouse. The capture histories include binomial values for each trapping session in a given year, denoting whether or not an individual was not captured (0) or was captured (1) in each trapping session. The data are formatted in this manner to facilitate capture-mark-recapture analyses (typically defined as assessing animal "survival").

The second dataset (Buck Mountain Mouse and Vole Reencounter Data 2019-2021.xlsx) includes mice and voles from a site called "Buck Mountain", specifically. Each line of data is for an individual mouse or vole. Variables include "YEAR" (2019, 2020, 2021), "SPECIES" (deer mouse, vole), "SEX" (female, male), "TREATMENT" (vaccine or placebo), reencounter "INTERVAL" (with 3 monthly survival intervals per year), and "SURVIVAL" (a binomial variable denoting whether or not the individual survived the interval of interest [i.e., 1 = captured at the start and end of the monthly interval, 0 = captured at the start but not at the end of the monthly interval]). The data are formatted in this manner to facilitate logistic regression analyses (typically defined as assessing animal "reencounters"). Funding for this study was provided by the U.S. Geological Survey Fort Collins Science Center internally, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Colorado State University, and Prairie Wildlife Research.