Hog Wallows or Prairie Mounds

Distribution of Flodman's Thistle and Its Response to Different Disturbances

The importance of disturbance in prairie has long been recognized. Increasingly interest and research have focused on the action and interaction of multiple disturbances. The distribution of Flodman's thistle [Cirsiumflodmanii (Rydb.) Arthur] on ant mounds, badger mounds, buffalo wallows, and potholes and in a lightly and a moderately grazed pasture was compared at the Nature Conservancy's S. H...

Colonization of bison (Bison bison) wallows in a tallgrass prairie by Culicoides spp (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae).

Prairie Dog: Cuddly Pet or Trojan Horse?

cles analyze tularemia outbreaks, and one examines the pathologic features of monkeypox in commercially traded prairie dogs. While the prairie dog–associated tularemia outbreak and the first U.S. monkeypox outbreak highlight health risks to humans of the unregulated trade of wildcaught animals, they also raise broader issues. Exotic animal import and export have altered the composition of nativ...

Prairie Dog Overpopulation: Value Judgement or Ecological Reality?

—The subject of prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus) overpopulation is complex, and judgements of overpopulation may not be based on prairie dog population size or density. Caughley's (1981) model of animal overpopulation is applied here to prairie dogs to clarify the basis for a judgement of overpopulation in each of several cases. There are ecological components to all such cases, but a purely ...

Ant-mound Effects on Two Adjacent Prairies: Virgin and Plowed

Mound-building Fmmica ants may be important biotic factors within prairie restorations because mounds found in virgin prairies can exist for decades, with densities up to 1,148 mounds/ha (465 mounds/acre). Research on the effects of Formica ant mounds on a virgin and an adjacent restored prairie (treatments) was established in 2003 near Olathe, Kansas; and it was expected that percent soil mois...