DOI: 10.5061/dryad.pzgmsbcpx
title: Associated data for: Disease and weather induce rapid shifts in a rangeland ecosystem mediated by a keystone species (Cynomys ludovicianus)

description: Habitat loss and changing climate have direct impacts on native species
 but can also interact with disease pathogens to influence wildlife
 communities. In the North American Great Plains, black-tailed prairie dogs
 (Cynomys ludovicianus) are a keystone species that create important
 grassland habitat for numerous species and serve as prey for predators,
 but lethal control driven by agricultural conflict has severely reduced
 their abundance. Novel disease dynamics caused by epizootic plague
 (Yersinia pestis) within prairie dog colonies have further reduced prairie
 dog abundances, in turn destabilizing associated wildlife communities. We
 capitalized on a natural experiment — collecting data on prairie dog
 distributions, vegetation structure, avian abundance, and mesocarnivore
 and ungulate occupancy before (2015–2017) and after (2018–2019) a plague
 event in northeastern Wyoming, USA. Plague decimated black-tailed prairie
 dog populations in what was then the largest extant colony complex,
 reducing colony cover in the focal area from over 10,000 ha to less than
 50 ha. We documented dramatic declines in mesocarnivore occupancy and
 raptor abundance post-plague, with probability of occupancy or abundance
 approaching zero in species that rely on prairie dogs for a high
 proportion of their diet (e.g., ferruginous hawk [Buteo regalis], American
 badger [Taxidea taxus], and swift fox [Vulpes velox]). Following the
 plague outbreak, abnormally high precipitation in 2018 hastened vegetation
 recovery from prairie dog disturbance on colonies where constant herbivory
 had formerly maintained shortgrass structure necessary for certain
 colony-associates. As a result, we observed large shifts in avian
 communities on former prairie dog colonies, including near-disappearance
 of mountain plovers (Charadrius montanus) and increases in mid-grass
 associated songbirds (e.g., lark bunting [Calamospiza melanocorys]). Our
 research highlights how precipitation can interact with disease-induced
 loss of a keystone species to induce drastic and rapid shifts in wildlife
 communities. Although grassland taxa co-evolved with high spatiotemporal
 variation, fragmentation of remaining North American rangelands paired
 with higher-than-historical variability in climate and disease dynamics
 are likely to destabilize these systems in the future.
description: File includes five data sheets/tabs. The first includes basic
 metadata, the second contains raptor data, the third contains
 songbird/shorebird data, the fourth contains camera trap data,and the
 fifth contains visual obstruction data. Data were collected between 2015
 and 2019 in the U.S. Forest Service Thunder Basin National Grassland of
 Wyoming. These are the ancestral lands of the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho
 tribes (https://native-land.ca/).  Camera data include only 2017 - 2018 data, as described in the manuscript. Camera data are summarized at the week scale Details on data collection and curation can be found in the manuscript. Please note that prairie dog colony spatial data are not included here, as these are curated by the U.S. Forest Service and Thunder Basin Grassland Prairie Ecosystem Association (TBGPEA). Please contact Dave Pellatz (TGBPEA; https://www.tbgpea.org/who-we-are/the-board) or Courtney Duchardt (Oklahoma State University ; https://agriculture.okstate.edu/departments-programs/natural-resource/people/faculty/index.html) if you are interested in accessing these files
description: Data are all stored in an xlsx (Microsoft excel) file with
 multiple tabs. All analyses were conducted in program R.