RESEARCH ARTICLE Spatiotemporal dynamics of black-tailed prairie dog colonies affected by plague

Abstract

Abstract Black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludo-vicianus) are a key component of the disturbance regime in semi-arid grasslands of central North America. Many studies have compared community and ecosystem characteristics on prairie dog colonies to grasslands without prairie dogs, but little is known about landscape-scale patterns of disturbance that prairie dog colony complexes may impose on grass-lands over long time periods. We examined spatiotemporal dynamics in two prairie dog colony complexes in southeastern Colorado (Comanche) and northcentral Montana (Phillips County) that have been strongly influenced by plague, and compared them to a complex unaffected by plague in north-western Nebraska (Oglala). Both plague-affecte