DOI: 10.6073/pasta/72fe7be05a7f81c27156df2039e2b7de
title: SGS-LTER Long-Term Monitoring Project: Small Mammals on Trapping Webs on the Central Plains Experimental Range, Nunn, Colorado, USA 1994 -2006, ARS Study Number 118 (Reformatted to the ecocomDP Design Pattern)

description: This data package is formatted as an ecocomDP (Ecological Community Data Pattern). For more information on ecocomDP see https://github.com/EDIorg/ecocomDP. This Level 1 data package was derived from the Level 0 data package found here: https://pasta.lternet.edu/package/metadata/eml/knb-lter-sgs/137/17. The abstract below was extracted from the Level 0 data package and is included for context: This data package was produced by researchers working on the Shortgrass Steppe Long Term Ecological Research (SGS-LTER) Project, administered at Colorado State University. Long-term datasets and background information (proposals, reports, photographs, etc.) on the SGS-LTER project are contained in a comprehensive project collection within the Digital Collections of Colorado (http://digitool.library.colostate.edu/R/?func=collections&collection_id=3429). The data table and associated metadata document, which is generated in Ecological Metadata Language, may be available through other repositories serving the ecological research community and represent components of the larger SGS-LTER project collection. Additional information and referenced materials can be found: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/83452. Small mammals (rabbits, rodents) are integral components of semiarid ecosystems because of their roles as consumers of plants, seeds and arthropods, as soil disturbance agents, and as food for raptors, snakes and mammalian carnivores. Because of their vagility and intermediate trophic position, populations of small mammals may track changes in vegetation and the abiotic environment that may result from shifts in land-use and other anthropogenic disturbances. However, these populations are variable over space and time, and their response to environmental changes may not be immediately apparent given their behavioral flexibility and relatively long life-spans and generation times. Patterns in the distribution and abundance of small mammals thus may simultaneously reflect and affect the stability of the shortgrass-steppe ecosystem. Long-term studies of population and community dynamics therefore are needed to fully understand the role of small mammals in grassland ecosystems. In 1994, we implemented a sampling scheme to monitor long-term changes in relative abundance of small mammals in representative habitats of shortgrass steppe. We live-trapped nocturnal rodents twice each year (spring, late summer) on trapping webs in upland prairie (GRASS) and saltbush-dominated (SHRUB) habitats. Three 3.14-ha webs were established in each habitat. Each web had 124 Sherman traps, which were spaced 10-m apart on 12 100-m spokes, with 30 degrees between spokes. Four traps were set in the center of the web. Traps were set for four consecutive nights in each trapping session. Traps are baited with a mix of peanut butter and oats, set in the evening and checked (and closed) at dawn. We recorded sex, age and weight upon first capture of all individuals. In the early years of the study, individuals were batch-marked (Sharpie colored felt markers) to distinguish recaptures from new individuals, providing the minimum information necessary to use distance-sampling methods to estimate density. Most nocturnal species are now usually marked with aluminum ear tags, although we continue to mark very small (pocket mice) or small-eared (voles) species only with felt pens. For ear-tagged animals, we distinguish new captures (N) from individuals marked during previous sessions (old, O), versus those that are recaptured (R) on 2nd, 3rd or 4th nights of a trapping session. The location of one trapping web was changed from 13NE (1994-1997) to 13SW (1998- present) because of concerns about intensive cattle use in the pasture, as well as activity of CPER Site Manager’s cats. The Shortgrass Steppe Long Term Ecological Research (SGS-LTER) project was funded by National Science Foundation as one of the first sites in the US LTER Network in 1982. This collaborative, interdisciplinary research project was established in the Natural Resource Ecology Lab at Colorado State University by ecosystem scientists who learned novel approaches to study grassland ecosystems during the International Biome Program (IBP) (1968-1974). The SGS-LTER project was built upon the foundation of data and information obtained during IBP, as scientists sought to identify and follow, and often manipulate in experiments, important ecosystem processes over the long-term. The objectives of the SGS-LTER project were to investigate what mechanisms regulate processes in the shortgrass steppe. Research questions focused on how biotic and abiotic components of the ecosystem are coupled, where and when ecosystem components are most vulnerable to perturbations, disseminating information that would be helpful for rangeland management and assessing impacts of climate change. Scientists explored variations in the structure and function of the ecosystem over space and time and sought to understand how these aspects are governed by climate, natural disturbance, biota, physiography, and human use. Scientists at the SGS-LTER integrated long-term monitoring data, designed experimental studies, performed and advanced modeling techniques, and synthesized data to conduct innovative research, education, and outreach. The core SGS-LTER research site was established on the Central Plains Experimental Range (CPER) in Nunn, Colorado, part of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service. The research site sits in the rain shadow of the Rocky Mountains at the western edge of the shortgrass steppe of North America. The shortgrass steppe ecosystem evolved with grazing by the American bison, which has now been replaced by cattle. Grazing by domestic livestock is the primary land use of native grassland, which occupies about 60% of the land area of the shortgrass steppe. Short grasses dominate the vegetation community, which have adapted to grazing and less than 400 mm of annual rainfall. The topography is characterized by gently rolling hills, broad ephemeral stream courses and low flat-topped terraces. Aspects of physiography regulate the shortgrass steppe ecosystem, including landscape position, soil age, water holding capacity, soil depth and surface texture which, in turn, determine such properties as soil moisture storage, net primary productivity and the distribution of small mammals such as prairie dogs and pocket gophers. SGS-LTER scientists have expanded their research studies beyond the CPER to identify similar or different patterns in ecosystem structure and function in North American grasslands; across the Great Plains region and along the latitudinal gradient from Wyoming to Mexico. They also conducted cross-site collaborative research and compared their results and tested theories in grasslands located in South America, Asia and Africa. Funding from NSF for the SGS-LTER project ends in 2014, but over thirty years of research has resulted in a scientific team with diverse expertise, which produced over 1200 journal publications, almost 400 book chapters and over 200 theses. Data, products and other information produced from the SGS-LTER are available through the LTER Network Information System, Digital Collections of Colorado at CSU or upon request through ecodata_nrel@colostate.edu.