Ecosystem engineering by a colonial mammal: how prairie dogs structure rodent communities.

As ecosystem engineers, prairie dogs (Cynomys spp.) physically alter their environment, but the mechanism by which these alterations affect associated faunal composition is not well known. We examined how rodent and vegetation communities responded to prairie dog colonies and landcover at the Cimarron National Grassland in southwest Kansas, USA. We trapped rodents and measured vegetation structure on and off colonies in 2000 and 2003. We plotted two separate ordinations of trapping grids: one based on rodent counts and a second based on vegetation variables. We regressed three factors on each ordination: (1) colony (on-colony and off-colony), (2) cover (shortgrass and sandsage), and (3) habitat (factorial cross of colony x cover). Rodent communities differed by colony but not cover. Vegetation differed across both gradients. Rodent responses to habitat reflected those of colony and cover, but vegetation was found to differ across cover only in the sandsage prairie. This interaction suggested that rodent composition responded to prairie dog colonies, but independently of vegetation differences. We conclude that burrowing and soil disturbance are more important than vegetation cropping in structuring rodent communities.