Eliminating prairie dogs can lead to desertification

Sophia Li

Author: Sarah Zielinkski
Published: October 17, 2013
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/wild-things/eliminating-prairie-dogs-can-lead-desertification

Summary
North America is home to five species of prairie dogs, which can be found throughout the continent. Prairie dogs are considered a keystone species, and eliminating prairie dogs from an ecosystem leads to a significant decrease in biodiversity. Prairie dog burrows provide homes for many other animals in the ecosystem, and serve as prey for many other species as well. Their grazing keeps grasslands open and devoid of trees. However, many people consider prairie dogs pests, claiming that they compete with cattle for grass and ruin the landscape. For this reason, prairie dogs have been eliminated from many parts of their regions. The new PLOS ONE study shows that prairie dogs have a great impact on essential ecosystem services such as erosion and groundwater recharge. They discovered that prairie dog's burrowing behavior exposes the soil and distributes nutrients and organic material. This allows water to trickle through the soil, and thus lands with prairie dogs have soils that are less compacted. These soils can soak up more of the region's scarce water, withdrawing it for drier times. More water increases forage production, which actually means more food for cattle. Lands with compacted soil can't soak up water, and are vulnerable to desertification. Northern Mexico and much of western America have been suffering from drought, and desertification has been a concern ever since the rapid disappearance of prairie dogs. Evidently, 'environmental challenges require an understanding of the processes of ecosystems and wildlife populations', and prairie dogs should not be dismissed as a factor in these environmental issues.

Connection
This article connects to our studies of ecosystems and the importance of a keystone species in a diverse ecosystem. As part of our ecosystem unit, we learned how eliminating a keystone species leads to a significant loss of biodiversity. Prairie dogs are the keystone species of many savanna biomes, and removing them from the ecosystem not causes an imbalance in the food web, but also has a major impact on many abiotic factors. The article describes how prairie dog burrows provide homes for other organisms in the ecosystem, and how they are also prey for many other species. Removing prairie dogs from the food web would cause the predator population to decline, and also decrease the population of many smaller species that rely on prairie dog burrows for habitats. In our class unit, we also learned how the activities of organisms can affect the abiotic factors of an ecosystem. This article also explains the borrowing process of prairie dogs makes the soil less compacted, and so eliminating prairie dogs from the grassland biome can lead to desertification.