Four plants made up 65% of items in fecal pellets of the black-tailed prairie dog in western South Dakota. These important forages in order of significance were sand dropseed, sun sedge, blue grama, and wheatgrasses. Grasses made up 87% of the total diet, while forbs comprised 12%. Shrubs, arthropods, and seeds made up 1% or less of the diet. Preference indices were highest for ring muhly, green needlegrass, and sand dropseed. Relationships of diets to available forage was weak, having an average similarity of 25%; rank-order correlations were nonsignificant, indicating that black-tailed prairie dogs are selective feeders. This material was digitized as part of a cooperative project between the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries. The Journal of Range Management archives are made available by the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact lbry-journals@email.arizona.edu for further information. Migrated from OJS platform August 2020
Scholarly peer-reviewed articles published by the Society for Range Management. Access articles on a rolling-window basis from vol. 1, 1948 up to 5 years from the current year. Formerly Journal of Range Management (JRM). More recent content is available by subscription from SRM.