Tiny prairie dogs’ poop play a mighty role in grasslands
The earth is made of cycles. If you think back to the LycĂ©e’s Earth Sciences class, you may remember the water cycle, the rocky cycle and the oxygen cycle, to name just a few. These natural processes continuously recycle the materials of our planet, maintaining the environment that hosts life as we know it.
The nutrient cycle is another crucial example of the constant unsubscribing of our planet. Part of the cycle consists of plants consuming soil nutrients, herbivores consuming plant nutrients, then restarting nutrients in the soil via their excrement and urine. And a little shit can go very far.
In a recent Ecology The study, researchers from the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZCBI) studying the cycle of nutrients in the meadows of meadows have revealed that meadow dogs and grasshoppers contribute more than much larger prairie comrades such as bison and cattle.
“Although previous work has examined the roles of herbivores as nutritious cyclers, the comparison between the different herbivorous body sizes is a relatively new component of this study and I wanted to know more about this subject,” said Ellen Welti, an ecologist at the Smithsonian Institution and the main author of the study, said Ellen Welti, an ecologist Smithsonian Institution and principal author of the study, said Ellen Welti, an ecologist at the Smithsonian Institution and principal author of the study, said Ellen Welti, an ecologist at the Smithsonian Institution and principal author of the study, said Ellen Popular science..
More specifically, Welti and his colleagues have studied how prairie dogs, grasshoppers, bison and cattle contribute nutrients to grass and ground in 15 sites of meadows in northeast Montana. They found that meadow dogs were the most beneficial for the availability of meadow nutrients. In particular, the cities of Prairie dogs (yes, this is really what the areas in which they live) present the highest levels of carbon and nitrogen in the soil. This concentration increased when there was more than another little herbivore around the grassins.
“There were many more locusts on PD [prairie dog] Cities than any other place in the meadows, “explains Welti.” There seems to be a mutualism here where the locusts benefit from the nutritious cycling of meadow dogs and are attracted to the high densities of plant tissue nutrients on the cities of PD.
In addition, prairie dogs have increased nitrogen, potassium and magnesium in grass tissues. Researchers think it could be due to their excretions and excavation behaviors, which better integrate nutrients into the soil. As for the locusts, they increased phosphorus from the soil.
How can these little creatures contribute more than the biggest? Welti says that: “Although” smaller “herbivores are smaller on an individual comparison base, they are generally much more abundant than” larger “herbivores. In terms of biomass / total area, small herbivores can be equal or have greater values ​​for larger herbivores. ”
In addition, the researchers noted that the life cycle of the locusts is probably responsible for the increase in the biomass of the plants of the meadows which generally takes place in the middle of the summer before decreasing again. Baby’s grasshoppers, called nymphs, hatch in spring and become adults – with an adult appetite – at the end of summer and fall. This cycle aligns with the typical decline in vegetable biomass at the end of the growth season. Cattle and bison, on the other hand, are more or less constant quantities of plants during the summer.
The meadows are among the most risky land environments, and the North American populations of Bison and Prairie dogs have decreased sharply since European arrival. The study highlights the role of the most useful small residents of the meadows, with important implications for conservation efforts.
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