Black-tailed Prairie Dog

Extrapolation à partir de Miller, Ceballos & Reading (1994), qui documentent le réseau de terriers utilisé par des dizaines d'espèces du vivant de la colonie, pas le devenir de ce réseau après sa disparition.

Miller, Ceballos and Reading (1994) show that prairie dog burrows form a network of habitats used by dozens of species, from the black-footed ferret to the burrowing owl, which rely on it for shelter or food. That network exists thanks to ongoing maintenance by the colony; without it to dig and clear, access to that habitat would degrade quickly.

What's missing to confirm it: No study directly measures how quickly a burrow network stops being usable once the colony is gone.

Extrapolation prudente à partir de Miller, Ceballos & Reading (1994) sur la dépendance du putois à pieds noirs et de la chevêche des terriers envers la colonie ; une revue critique de 1999 (Kotliar et al.) conteste l'ampleur de cet effet pour l'ensemble de la communauté de la prairie.

The effect is solidly documented for a small number of highly specialized species (black-footed ferret, burrowing owl), but according to some authors is overstated for the prairie animal community as a whole — an example where the literature itself is divided on the exact magnitude of the effect, not just its existence.

What's missing to confirm it: A consensus on the actual magnitude (as opposed to the mere existence) of the prairie dog's keystone effect on the prairie community as a whole, beyond the few well-documented specialist species.

Extrapolation à partir du déclin de 95 à 98 % du chien de prairie depuis le début du 20e siècle (déjà documenté dans cette fiche) et du fait historique bien établi de la quasi-extinction du putois à pieds noirs, combiné à Miller, Ceballos & Reading (1994) sur sa dépendance directe à la colonie.

The prairie dog's decline across most of the 20th century, mainly driven by poisoning campaigns, is already documented in this fiche (95 to 98% below historical levels). The black-footed ferret, which depends almost entirely on the colony for food and shelter according to Miller, Ceballos and Reading (1994), followed that decline down to near-disappearance: declared extinct in the wild in 1979, it survived only thanks to a forgotten colony near Meeteetse, Wyoming, discovered in 1981. The coincidence between the two timelines is the best-established historical fact here; the precise mechanism remains a reasonable extrapolation rather than a study isolating the prairie dog as the sole cause.

What's missing to confirm it: No study breaks down the share of the prairie dog's decline, relative to other causes (sylvatic plague, land conversion to farming), in the black-footed ferret's near-extinction at this historical scale.