Data on flea combing removals from black-tailed prairie dogs, Vermejo Park Ranch, New Mexico, 2011

We studied black-tailed prairie dogs and their fleas in the short-grass prairie of Vermejo Park Ranch, New Mexico, USA, June-August 2011. We live-trapped and sampled prairie dogs on 20 plots at 13 prairie dog colonies. Upon capture, we anesthetized each prairie dog (and its fleas) with isoflurane and combed the prairie dog as thoroughly as possible for ectoparasites (as described below). We marked each prairie dog's ears with tags for permanent identification and released it at the point of capture upon recovery from anesthesia. During each capture event (defined as a primary occasion), prairie dogs were anesthetized in an induction chamber, held vertically by the nape, and combed thoroughly, 3 consecutive times, 15 seconds each, over 3 separate water-lined tubs to remove and trap fleas. Individual prairie dogs were trapped 1 to 6 times over the course of the field season. In this dataset, each primary sampling occasion for an individual prairie dog (separated by 5 or more days) was considered independent of other occasions. The data set (Flea Combing Removal Data.xlsx) includes the following information for each primary sampling occasion: primary sampling occasion number (PrimaryOccasion); identification number of the unique, individual flea detected (Flea); an encounter history for each individual flea (EncounterHistory); and the Julian day of sampling in 2011 (JulianDay in the year 2011, where the first two digits are the last two digits of the year 2011 and the number after the dash is the Julian Day). Multiple individual fleas could be collected from the same prairie dog within a sampling occasion. Flea encounter histories were ‘100’ if the flea was combed into the 1st water-lined tub, ‘010’ if combed into the 2nd tub, and ‘001’ if combed into the 3rd tub.

2011年6月至8月，我们在美国新墨西哥州韦尔梅乔公园牧场（Vermejo Park Ranch）的短草草原（short-grass prairie）生境中，开展了黑尾土拨鼠（black-tailed prairie dogs）及其体表跳蚤的相关研究。我们在13个黑尾土拨鼠种群分布点的20个样地内，对土拨鼠进行了活体诱捕与样本采集。捕获后，我们使用异氟烷（isoflurane）对每只土拨鼠及其体表跳蚤实施麻醉，并尽可能彻底地为土拨鼠梳毛以采集体外寄生虫（ectoparasites，采集方法详见下文）。我们通过耳标为每只土拨鼠进行永久标识，并在其麻醉苏醒后，于捕获原地将其放归。每次诱捕事件（定义为一次主要采样周期）中，土拨鼠均在诱导麻醉箱（induction chamber）内接受麻醉，随后通过颈背将其垂直固定，先后在3个独立的衬水容器中依次彻底梳毛3次，每次持续15秒，以收集并留存跳蚤。在整个野外调查周期内，单只土拨鼠的诱捕次数为1至6次。本数据集中，同一只土拨鼠的两次主要采样周期间隔需达5天及以上，且各采样周期相互独立。本数据集（Flea Combing Removal Data.xlsx）包含了每次主要采样周期的如下信息：主要采样周期编号（PrimaryOccasion）、检出的单只跳蚤唯一识别编号（Flea）、单只跳蚤的遭遇历史（EncounterHistory），以及2011年采样的儒略日（Julian day）：该字段前两位为2011年的末两位数字，横杠后的数值即为儒略日。单次采样周期内，可从同一只土拨鼠身上采集到多只不同的跳蚤个体。若跳蚤被梳入第1个衬水容器，则其遭遇历史编码为“100”；若梳入第2个容器，则编码为“010”；若梳入第3个容器，则编码为“001”。