Abstract
ABSTRACTThe conservation and management of black‐tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus) have been contentious issues in grasslands of central North America for much of the past century, primarily because of the perception that they compete with livestock for forage. Studies quantifying the magnitude of competition between prairie dogs and cattle are difficult to conduct because of the large spatial and long temporal scales needed to quantify how competition varies in response to interannual variation in precipitation and prairie dog abundance. We examined variation in mass gains of yearling steers in shortgrass steppe of northeastern Colorado, USA, with and without prairie dogs from 2008–2019, a period that encompassed a full cycle in prairie dog abundance from a nadir following plague‐induced population collapse, to peak abundance following population recovery, to plague‐induced population lows again. Analyses of cattle grazing distribution with global positioning system (GPS)‐collars revealed preferential grazing on colonies following a period of unusually high vegetation production, and preferential grazing off colonies following a period of rapid vegetation senescence, but these patterns were not clearly related to cattle mass gains. Across all 12 years of the study, average daily mass gain (ADG) during the growing season was 0.97 kg/steer/day in pastures where prairie dogs were controlled annually, and 0.95 kg/steer/day in pastures where they were not. Average daily mass gain was a quadradic function of precipitation and a linear function of prairie dog occupancy within a pasture, with a generalized linear mixed model predicting an 8.0% decrease in ADG as prairie dog occupancy increased from 0 to 60% of a pasture with average growing‐season precipitation. We did not detect a significant interaction between precipitation and prairie dog occupancy, but one limitation of our study is that the only drought year (2012) occurred when prairie dogs occupied low percentages (10–25%) of the study pastures. Prairie dogs had a small but detectable negative effect on cattle mass gains during the growing season in shortgrass steppe. The magnitude of this effect can be used by managers in combination with market conditions and the spatial extent of prairie dog colonies to estimate economic effects of prairie dogs on livestock operations. © 2021 The Wildlife Society. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.