SGS-LTER Graduate Student Research: Cattle use of prairie dog towns on the shortgrass steppe of Colorado

This data package was produced by researchers
working on the Shortgrass Steppe Long Term
Ecological Research (SGS-LTER) Project,
administered at Colorado State University.
Long-term datasets and background information
(proposals, reports, photographs, etc.) on the
SGS-LTER project are contained in a comprehensive
project collection within the Digital Collections
of Colorado
(http://digitool.library.colostate.edu/R/?func=collections&collection_id=3429).
The data table and associated metadata document,
which is generated in Ecological Metadata
Language, may be available through other
repositories serving the ecological research
community and represent components of the larger
SGS-LTER project collection. Additional information and referenced materials can be found: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/83512. We investigated the use of prairie dog towns
by cattle (Bos taurus) on the shortgrass steppe of
northeastern Colorado by conducting surveys of
cattle and vegetation from June to August 1999.
Cattle presence and behavior were recorded 3 times
a week during driving surveys of 15 black-tailed
prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus) towns. A subset
of 3 pastures with prairie dog towns was
intensively surveyed twice weekly wherein the
habitat and activity of a randomly chosen focal
animal was recorded every 6 minutes for 3.5 hours.
Bite and step counts of other individuals were
recorded for 5-minute intervals. Vegetation height
and cover data were collected monthly on each of 6
habitats. Results from driving surveys and
intensively surveyed pastures were similar; cattle
neither significantly preferred nor avoided
prairie dog towns. Bare ground cover on prairie
dog towns did not significantly differ from most
other habitats, but vegetation on prairie dog
towns was significantly shorter on (mean = 6.7 cm)
than that off (mean = 11.9 cm) prairie dog towns.
Nevertheless, foraging observations indicated that
there was no significant difference between cattle
foraging rates on swales (70.9 bites/min) and
prairie dog towns (69.5 bites/min). Thus, cattle
on the shortgrass steppe appear to use prairie dog
towns in proportion to their availability and,
while there, they graze as intensively as they do
on habitats not inhabited by prairie dogs.