Recently, the changes in the habitation of living organisms and degradation of biodiversity caused by transfiguration of rural landscape have emerged as serious issues in rural areas. For future landscape planning, it is imperative to examine the relationship between each landscape element and habitation. In this study, the relationship between rural landscape elements and the distribution pattern of several species of wild mice was investigated in south Boso peninsula, Chiba prefecture. The results showed that the distribution of forest dependant Apodemus argenteus, forest and grassland dependant A. speciosus, cultivated land dependant Mus musculus, and strongly grassland dependant Micromys minutus species of mice corresponded almost with each landscape element. These results suggest that the local mice in the study area were largely sustained by forests and grasslands and that the distribution and habitation of M. minutus depended on the variations in the grassland structure caused by cultivation management within terrace paddy fields.
