Diego Sustaita
California State University-San Marcos, CA·Ecology & Evolution·Early-career
Salt marshes flood every day with the tides and again with the seasons, and the animals living there must forage, move and breed despite constantly shifting water. The endangered salt marsh harvest mouse lives only in the San Francisco Bay estuary, yet little is known about how it copes with these conditions or how it avoids competing with other rodents in the same marshes.
- Fields
Ecology & Evolution
Biology
- Topics
salt marsh harvest mouse
endangered species
wetland rodents
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Measure biting, climbing and swimming performance of the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse and co-occurring wetland rodents in the laboratory using kinematic (motion) analyses.
- Relate performance to body form, including tail and limb length, foot pad size and shape, and head width and depth, to explain how physical differences among species evolved and how they partition resources.
- Test the adaptive value of these traits in the field using long-term mark-recapture studies, microhabitat measurements and genetic analyses in California's Suisun Marsh.
More about the research
Knowing why a species is struggling is key to planning its recovery, especially as sea level rises and managers flood wetlands on purpose.
Why it matters
The endangered salt marsh harvest mouse faces habitat loss and sea level rise. By identifying the limits of its physical abilities to use marsh habitat and food, and how different wetland management regimes affect it, this work could inform wildlife management policies for the San Francisco Bay estuary and help managers plan for the species' recovery.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jessica Sullivan
University of South Carolina-Columbia, SC·Earth & Environmental Science·Early-career
Measure how subtle marsh elevation and drainage patterns control water flow across the marsh surface, sediment buildup and how long water stays, across a salt marsh to forest gradient in the ACE Basin, South Carolina.
Samantha Chapman
Villanova University, PA·Ecology & Evolution
Test whether excess nitrogen loading disrupts the soil accumulation that lets coastal wetlands keep up with sea level rise, using experimental nitrogen additions at creekside and interior field plots.
James Morris
University of South Carolina-Columbia, SC·Ecology & Evolution
Test whether salt marsh elevation gain is driven by belowground biomass production of Spartina alterniflora and scales with net ecosystem production, using long-term North Inlet measurements.
The school
California State University-San Marcos: 1 labs on PI Pages, $13M a year on research.
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