Temporal patterns of prairie dog populations in Badlands National Park, South Dakota

Bowser, Gillian

"In this study, I examine the temporal distribution of a patch-forming rodent inhabiting the Great Plains of North America. The black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovisianus) is a colonial fossorial rodent originally found from Saskatchewan, Canada to northern Mexico (Cebellos et al. 1993). Black-tailed prairie dogs create unique habitat patches by actively removing certain species of grasses and forbes, aerating the soils, and abandoning burrows and tunnels within a patch (Clark et al. 1989). The burrows, along with the vegetation changes promoted by the prairie dogs, have distinct signatures, visible in aerial photography and remotely-sensed images (Schenbeck and Myre 1986). These scars can be used as measures of temporal changes in animal distribution and can also elucidate environmental parameters influencing colony placement and movement (directed or random in space). Specific objectives of this study are to: (1) describe changes in five prairie dog populations over time; (2) estimate patterns of growth of those populations (random or nonrandom) bases on population centers (centroids); and (3) evaluate associations with preferred (based on population placements over time) habitat parameters and population growth or movement." (from document Introduction)