Last week, Dr. Ana Davidson, Michelle Fink, and Michael Menefee of Colorado State University published a study titled “Present and future suitable habitat for the black-tailed prairie-dog ecosystem” with colleagues Lindsey Sterling-Krank of the Prairie Dog Coalition, William Van Pelt of the Western of Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, and Dr. David Augustine of the USDA Agricultural Research Service in which they developed a habitat suitability model for the black-tailed prairie dog (BTPD) ecosystem across their historic and emerging geographic range within the United States.

NC CASC’s Dr. Imtiaz Rangwala provided guidance on the development and use of climate scenarios for modeling suitable BTPD habitat in the future. The study finds that only 9% of available habitat is currently occupied by black-tailed prairie dogs, but there is significant conservation potential for the ecosystem due to the expansive remaining habitat. While suitable habitat is expected to shrink in the south central grasslands due to climate change in the future, the authors found that the northern habitat will expand. They conclude that preservation of this ecosystem and recovery of the prairie dogs is optimistic, and expect their work and the modeling tool to aid in conservation planning throughout the region.

Read the full article here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2023.110241.