Nongame Wildlife Management in Central Kansas: Implications of Small Mammal Use of Fencerows, Fields, and Prairie

Abstract

Because of the relatively undisturbed vegetation and litter conditions they provide, fencerows should be important to nongame wildlife in agricultural areas. To understand the value of non-wooded fencerows to nongame mammals in Kansas, we compared use of prairie-cropland fencerows, grazed native prairie, and cropfields by rodents and shrews in Lincoln and Russell counties in north-central Kansas. Small mammals were assessed in fencerows, cropfields, upland prairie, and limestone breaks prairie using two traplines per habitat during each of seven censuses from July 1981 to July 1983. Total abundance and species richness for native small mammals were high in fencerows (22.5 individuals and 3.8 species per trapline per census) as compared to upland prairie (7.8 individuals and 2.8 species), breaks prairie (17.6 individuals and 2.2 species), and cropfields (17.3 individuals and 2.2 species). Prairie-cropland fencerow, especially fallow cropland, was the preferred habitat (of the four habitats studied) of cotton rats (Sigmodon hispidus), Elliot's short-tailed shrews (Blarina hylophaga), western harvest mice (Reithrodontomys megalotis), and prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster). Deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus), the most common of the small mammals, were abundant in fencerows as well as breaks prairie and cropfields, whereas northern grasshopper mice (Onychomys leucogaster) reached their greatest abundance in cropfields and fencerows. The introduced house mouse (Mus musculus) was trapped only in cropfields and fencerows. Results indicate that this prairie-cropland ecotone provides suitable habitat for several native small mammals that are uncommon in upland and breaks prairie in the mixed-grass prairie region of north-central Kansas. Species responding favorably to herbaceous vegetation in prairie-cropland fencerows were likely common in lowland mixed-grass prairie which mostly has been converted to cropland during the last 100-125 years.