White-footed mice love acorns and, because the mice reproduce quickly and mature quickly, responding to food abundance with bursts of heightened fecundity, big masting events are often followed (after a two-year lag) by big increases in the mouse population. One pair of mice, given circumstances of plentiful food, could produce a net gain of fifty to seventy-five mice within a year. More acorns, more mice, more infected ticks, more Lyme.
