Date
2015
Abstract
The Sevilleta Gunnison’s Prairie Dog (Cynomys gunnisoni) Restoration project examines keystone consumer (herbivore) effects on grassland in concert with ecological restoration of a “species of greatest conservation need in New Mexico” (NMGandF Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy, 2007). SevLTER partners directly with Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico Game and Fish, USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station and non-profit Prairie Dog Pals on this ambitious effort to re-establish Gunnison’s prairie dogs to blue grama dominated (Bouteloua gracilis) Great Plains grassland at the foothills of the Los Pinos Mountains on Sevilleta. While engaged in wildlife management aimed at translocation of approximately 3000 individual prairie dogs, ultimately establishing 5-6 colonies over a 500 ha area, SevLTER is focusing resources on monitoring population dynamics of reintroduced prairie dogs and their effects on vegetation production and diversity, soil disturbance and grasshopper community composition. In this experiment, prairie dogs act as the treatment on a grassland site where the species was extirpated 40 years ago. The long term nature of the project lies in the course of re-establishing prairie dogs combined with the ultimate research goal of describing the functional role of Gunnison’s prairie dogs in an arid grassland ecosystem: first we are challenged to develop and document an economical and efficient management strategy which maximizes reintroduction success and colony survival; second we are tasked with monitoring prairie dog dynamics and their effects on the grassland throughout re-establishment and into a future state, when presumably management intervention will have subsided and we characterize the ecosystem as ‘restored’ – both in the face of highly variable abiotic inputs such as precipitation and temperature and biotic impacts such as predation.
Handle
http://hdl.handle.net/1928/29957
Other Identifier
SEV257
Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity (KNB) Identifier
knb-lter-sev.257.208279
Document Type
Dataset
Rights
Data Policies: This dataset is released to the public and may be freely downloaded. Please keep the designated Contact person informed of any plans to use the dataset. Consultation or collaboration with the original investigators is strongly encouraged. Publications and data products that make use of the dataset must include proper acknowledgement of the Sevilleta LTER. Datasets must be cited as in the example provided. A copy of any publications using these data must be supplied to the Sevilleta LTER Information Manager. By downloading any data you implicitly acknowledge the LTER Data Policy (http://www.lternet.edu/data/netpolicy.html).
Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.6073/pasta/0a914c9867df457ad6e8155613b4156f
Temporal coverage
2005-06-23 - 2011-08-17
Spatial coverage
Location: The study area is about 655 ha (~2.5 sq mi) in size and approximately 1 km due west from the foothills of the Los Pinos Mountains. The study is also just north of the Blue Grama Core Site.The center of plot B is: -106.628 34.333The center of plot D is: -106.636 34.324Soils: sandy loam and sandy clay loam, History: historically large prairie dog colonies inhabited the study area, siteid: 49
DOI
doi:10.6073/pasta/0a914c9867df457ad6e8155613b4156f
Permanent URL
http://dx.doi.org/10.6073/pasta/0a914c9867df457ad6e8155613b4156f
Recommended Citation
Davidson, Ana (2015): Gunnison's Prairie Dog Relocation Project: Population Dynamics within Grasslands at the Sevilleta National Widlife Refuge, New Mexico (2005-2014). Long Term Ecological Research Network. http://dx.doi.org/10.6073/pasta/0a914c9867df457ad6e8155613b4156f
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sev257_pdog_trapping_20140701.txt (72 kB)
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Comments
This dataset was originally published on the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network Data Portal, https://portal.lternet.edu, and potentially via other repositories or portals as described. The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) of the source data package is doi:10.6073/pasta/0a914c9867df457ad6e8155613b4156f, and may be accessed at http://dx.doi.org/10.6073/pasta/0a914c9867df457ad6e8155613b4156f. Metadata and files included in this record mirror as closely as possible the source data and documentation, with the provenance metadata and quality report generated by the LTER portal reproduced here as '*-provenance.xml' and *-report.html' files, respectively.