SGS-LTER Long-Term Monitoring Project: Vegetation Cover on Small Mammal Trapping Webs on the Central Plains Experimental Range, Nunn, Colorado, USA 1999 -2006, ARS Study Number 118

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/10217/83458. The abundance and diversity of small mammals in shortgrass steppe is strongly influenced
by the structure and composition of vegetation. Vegetation structure provides cover from
predators and harsh abiotic conditions. Plant species composition affects the types of seeds
and herbaceous material available to granivores and herbivores, and influences arthropod
populations, which are important prey for the omnivorous species that dominate in shortgrass
steppe. Both vegetation structure and plant community composition are sensitive to the
availability of precipitation as well as the activity of large mammalian herbivores. In 1999,
we began measuring vegetation structure and plant community composition on the three grassland
and three shrubland trapping webs where we live-trap small mammals. Vegetation measurements are
made once each year, usually in mid-July. Percent canopy cover of each plant species was
estimated visually in 30 0.10-m2 Daubenmire quadrats on each web. To estimate habitat
structure, we measured the height of grass, forb and shrub plants adjacent to each quadrat, the
density of half-shrubs, small mammal mounds and burrows, harvester ant mounds and the
dimensions of large shrubs and animal mounds.