PRF/M: Meadow-forest Ecotones: Subterranean Rock and Predation by Gophers

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9403290 Thomson Factors contributing to the distribution of subalpine meadows and forests in western Colorado will be studied in an attempt to establish firm intellectual connections between population processes and landscape patterns in the ecological sciences. Disturbance and herbivory by the pocket gopher, Thomomys talpoides, serve as the foci of the investigation. Manipulations of pocket gopher densities will be compared using sonic deterrence and trapping on plots set out in a factorial design. Seismic sensing will be used to evaluate the hypothesis that forest - meadow ecotones are driven by subsurface rock profiles that limit gopher activity. Spatial autocorrelation methods will be employed to relate shallow seismic profiles to indices of vegetation and gopher activity. Specialists in landscape ecology, geographic information systems (GIS), and spatial statistics will be consulted. %%% Results will serve as a basis for designing long - term studies of gopher exclusion at ecotones (an ecotone is a transition area that bounds two adjacent ecological community types, such as forest and grassland). The work has implications for land use policy, given that current use in the region consists of a mosaic of residential development, wilderness, tourism, grazing, and timbering, all of which are affected by large scale factors of logging, fire, avalanches and snow - creep, and grazing (by both native ungulates and livestock). The surmise that as plant predators, pocket gophers have potent effects on ecological succession is thus far relatively untested. ***