@ Jeff: The Grants are one of the reasons I got into long-term ecology. The limited morphology data (hind foot and weight) we have hasn’t shown much, though some species have shown slight increases in weight over time. But is that a body size change or a fat change? We couldn’t resolve it. Because we have such a diverse community, I think our “adaptations” are reorganization events. If there’s a species already in the pool that is adapted to the conditions, it’s faster to have them colonize and increase than for a current species to evolve into the niche.

@ Allen: No. Sadly. Sometimes people note ectoparasites – mites, fleas, bot flies, and ticks. These tend to show up with high prevalence when population numbers are high. We did have a student collect data on ectoparasites primarily fleas but it was only for a couple of years and I don’t think overlapping with one of our regime changes.

@ Mike: I have wondered if these dynamics – if general – might be more of a short-lifespan dynamic. Of course, we long-lived things the recovery period might take so long that we’re unlikely to see it given limited data collection. The approach is a little data intense, though we’ve tried it with some success on annual data. Good place to start is Christensen et al (2018) https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2373. We have R code if you want to talk more: https://github.com/weecology/LDATS