Demography and environmental stochasticity: empirical estimates of survival in three grassland rodents

Environmental stochasticity in vital rates influences the dynamics of structured populations. Stochastic models of population dynamics often assume that vital rates vary independently, an assumption that may be violated in many populations. We estimated the survival of three species of grassland rodents – deer mouse Peromyscus maniculatus , white‐footed mouse Peromyscus leucopus and western harvest mouse Reithrodontomys megalotis – using a long‐term dataset. We used these data to assess the level of cross correlation and autocorrelation in stage‐specific survival rates and the correlation between survival and selected environmental variables. We found little evidence of correlation among survival estimates in any species or correlation between survival and environmental variables. In contrast to other species in the region, our analyses suggest that survival rates in deer mice, white‐footed mice and western harvest mice vary independently throughout the year.