Distribution of Synaptomys cooperi 
163 
open habitat. The Beaufort County specimen was captured in a pit- 
fall trap set in the ecotone between communities characterized as a 
xeric pine savannah and a lowland pocosin (Webster et al. 1992). 
There is no detailed habitat information available for the 
Perquimans County record (Brimley 1905) or for two other speci- 
mens (NCSM 2654 and NCSM 4019) taken in the Dismal Swamp 
area. Although trapping in the Croatan National Forest yielded 
specimens from only unmanaged stands, it is clear from other 
efforts that some human alterations create habitats suitable for this 
lemming. 
There are few structural differences between the three short 
pocosin stands sampled in the National Forest that could account 
for the presence of Synaptomys in one and not in the other two. 
Drainage in the Great Lake Pocosin is limited to ditches associated 
with roads on the pocosin’s boundary, remote from its interior. By 
contrast, the other two stands of short pocosin where no Synaptomys 
were caught were considerably smaller and were bounded on at 
least two sides by ditches. The Great Lake Pocosin interior has a 
greater degree of surface saturation than the other areas, as evi- 
denced by the abundance of Sphagnum observed in the interior. 
The lack of records of S. c. helaletes from 1897 to the 1980s 
was once believed to be the result of changes in habitats caused 
by human activities (Handley 1979), particularly those involving 
changes in the water table. Rose (1981) concluded that fire preven- 
tion probably had a greater negative effect on Synaptomys habitat 
than did draining and ditching because the exclusion of fire re- 
duced the number and size of natural openings. Succession in poco- 
sin communities is naturally suppressed; therefore, pocosins provide 
a diverse assemblage of early successional habitats. These habitats 
are one of the few natural, open canopy plant communities in the 
southeastern Coastal Plain. Lee (1986) considered that pocosins 
might have provided the only available local habitat for many 
early successional birds before colonial development. Pocosins ap- 
pear to play a similar role for S. cooperi in eastern North Carolina. 
Because S. cooperi has now been captured both to the north 
and south of the Albemarle-Pamlico peninsula, one would assume 
that Synaptomys can be found in appropriate habitat on the penin- 
sula as well. Dare County has large expanses of pocosin and other 
wetlands, and it is separated from the Dismal Swamp area only by 
Albemarle Sound. No Synaptomys were taken in the 1980s on the 
Dare County mainland even though it was intensively trapped by 
both Clark et al. (1985) and by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
personnel at the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge (Mike 
