Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
Publications
The effects of management practices on grassland birds—Brewer’s Sparrow (Spizella breweri breweri)
Keys to Brewer’s Sparrow (Spizella breweri breweri) management include maintaining extensive, unfragmented patches of suitable breeding habitat; reducing conifer cover and height; preventing the invasion of conifers and nonnative plants, especially cheatgrass (downy brome [Bromus tectorum]); minimizing disturbance to soil; and restricting the use...
Walker, Brett L.; Igl, Lawrence D.; Shaffer, Jill A.
The effects of management practices on grassland birds—Nelson’s Sparrow (Ammospiza nelsoni nelsoni)
The key to Nelson’s Sparrow (Ammospiza nelsoni nelsoni) management is providing dense grasses or emergent vegetation near damp areas or freshwater wetlands. Nelson’s Sparrows have been reported to use habitats with 20–122 centimeters (cm) average vegetation height, 41 cm visual obstruction reading, 40–58 percent grass cover, 24 percent forb cover...
Shaffer, Jill A.; Igl, Lawrence D.; Johnson, Douglas H.; Sondreal, Marriah L.; Goldade, Christopher M.; Rabie, Paul A.; Euliss, Betty R.
The effects of management practices on grassland birds—Prairie Falcon (Falco mexicanus)
Keys to Prairie Falcon (Falco mexicanus) management include maintaining cliffs with suitable recesses for use as nest sites (that is, the substrate that supports the nest or the specific location of the nest on the landscape), protecting nest sites from human disturbance by designating buffer zones, and maintaining open landscapes and habitats...
DeLong, John P.; Steenhof, Karen
A new decision support tool for collaborative adaptive vegetation management in northern Great Plains national parks
National Park Service (NPS) units in the northern Great Plains (NGP) were established to preserve and interpret the history of America, protect and showcase unusual geology and paleontology, and provide a home for vanishing large wildlife. A unifying feature among these national parks, monuments, and historic sites is mixed-grass prairie, which...
Ashton, Isabel W.; Symstad, Amy; Baldwin, Heather; Post van der Burg, Max; Bekedam, Steven; Borgman, Erin; Haar, Milton; Hogan, Terri; Rockwood, Stephanie; Swanson, Daniel J; Thomson, Carmen; Wienk, Cody Testing a new passive acoustic recording unit to monitor wolves
As part of a broader trial of noninvasive methods to research wild wolves (Canis lupus) in Minnesota, USA, we explored whether wolves could be remotely monitored using a new, inexpensive, remotely deployable, noninvasive, passive acoustic recording device, the AudioMoth. We tested the efficacy of AudioMoths in detecting wolf howls and factors...
Barber-Meyer, Shannon; Palacios, Vicente; Marti‐Domken, Barbara; Schmidt, Lori
The effects of management practices on grassland birds—Sedge Wren (Cistothorus platensis)
Keys to Sedge Wren (Cistothorus platensis) management include providing tall, dense grasslands with moderate forb coverage and minimizing disturbances during the breeding season. Sedge Wrens have been reported to use habitats with 30–166 centimeters (cm) average vegetation height, 8–80 cm visual obstruction reading, 15–75 percent grass cover, 3–78...
Shaffer, Jill A.; Igl, Lawrence D.; Johnson, Douglas H.; Sondreal, Marriah L.; Goldade, Christopher M.; Parkin, Barry D.; Wooten, Travis L.; Euliss, Betty R.
The effects of management practices on grassland birds—Lesser Prairie-Chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus)
The key to Lesser Prairie-Chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus) management is maintaining expansive sand shinnery oak (Quercus havardii) or sand sagebrush (Artemisia filifolia) grasslands. Within these grasslands, areas should contain short herbaceous cover for lek sites (that is, an area where male prairie-chickens gather to engage in courtship...
Jamison, Brent E.; Igl, Lawrence D.; Shaffer, Jill A.; Johnson, Douglas H.; Goldade, Christopher M.; Euliss, Betty R. Wetland and hydric soils
Soil and the inherent biogeochemical processes in wetlands contrast starkly with those in upland forests and rangelands. The differences stem from extended periods of anoxia, or the lack of oxygen in the soil, that characterize wetland soils; in contrast, upland soils are nearly always oxic. As a result, wetland soil biogeochemistry is...
Trettin, Carl; Kolka, Randall; Marsh, Anne; Bansal, Sheel; Lilleskov, Eric; Megonigal, Patrick; Stelk, Marla; Lockaby, Graeme; D'Amore, David; MacKenzie, Richard A.; Tangen, Brian; Chimner, Rodney A.; Gries, James Great Plains
No abstract available.
Perry, Charles H.; Tangen, Brian; Bansal, Sheel Identifying sustainable winter habitat for whooping cranes
The only self-sustaining population of endangered whooping cranes (Grus americana) requires a network of conservation lands for wintering along the Texas Gulf Coast (USA), so that this increasing population can reach downlisting under the Endangered Species Act (1,000 birds). We identify locations providing the highest quality and most sustainable...
Metzger, Kristine L.; Lehnen, Sarah E.; Sesnie, Steven E; Butler, Matthew J; Pearse, Aaron T.; Harris, Grant Capturing spatiotemporal patterns in presence-absence data to inform monitoring and sampling designs for the threatened Dakota skipper (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae) in the Great Plains of the United States
Declines among species of insect pollinators, especially butterflies, has garnered attention from scientists and managers. Often these declines have spurred governments to declare some species as threatened or endangered. We used existing presence–absence data from surveys for the threatened Dakota skipper Hesperia dacotae (Skinner) to...
Post van der Burg, Max; Austin, Jane E.; Wiltermuth, Mark; Newton, Wesley E.; Macdonald, Garrett John Management of remnant tallgrass prairie by grazing or fire: Effects on plant communities and soil properties
Tallgrass prairie is a disturbance‐dependent ecosystem that has suffered steep declines in the midwestern United States. The necessity of disturbance, typically fire or grazing, presents challenges to managers who must apply them on increasingly small and fragmented parcels. The goal of this study was to compare effects of management using cattle...
Larson, Diane L.; Hernández, Daniel L.; Larson, Jennifer L.; Leone, Julia B.; Pennarola, Nora P.