The twenty first century is witnessing a shocking upsurge in the prevalence of diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndromes and other lifestyle related diseases. As a result there is a sharp escalation in the number of local fitness centers and health clubs, leading to a rampant employment of fitness trainers, who lack adequate knowledge and training.

Past studies on rodent population dynamics have narrowed down the mechanisms driving population fluctuations to single-factor theories such as the effects of resource pulses and top-down trophic cascades. The variation in rodent population dynamics across regional and climatic gradients, however, calls for a more holistic approach that takes into consideration mutiple site-specific factors. To that end, the effects of shelter availability and diversity of food-producing plants on Peromyscus activity were tested across three habitat types along a watershed in Big Sur, California.