CRB: Wildlife Effects on Tallgrass Prairie Restorations: Extension and Renewal

9815289HoweTallgrass草原上肥沃，水分充足的土壤代表了北美“最濒危”的主要生态系统，其中大部分地区正在转变为集约农业。因此，如何将农业用地恢复为高草草原至关重要。在高草草原的任何恢复项目的一个主要部分将是了解granivory和食草动物的作用，特别是小型哺乳动物，因为大部分恢复的高草草原将不会被大型本地有蹄类动物放牧。该项目建议继续进行一项研究，研究小型哺乳动物改变复制高草恢复的影响。此外，还要求提供支持，利用威斯康星州西南部啮齿动物可接近的围栏中啮齿动物抑制豆科植物所带来的新机会，进行一系列实验。这些实验使用恢复技术来测试动物觅食和植物竞争理论的基本预测。这项工作将有助于深入了解植物和动物的相互作用，这些相互作用只能从实验方法中获得，最好是在合成组合中进行，而不是不可替代的高草草原残留物。

9815289HoweTallgrass prairie on fertile, well-watered soils represents North America's "most endangered" major ecosystem, with most of those sites being converted to intensive agricultural. Thus, it is critical to know how to restore agricultural land to tallgrass prairie. A major part of any restoration project in tallgrass prairie will be understanding the roles of granivory and herbivory, especially by small mammals since much of the restored tallgrass prairie will not by grazed by large native ungulates. This project proposes to continue a study that is examining the effects of small mammal alteration of replicated tallgrass restoration. In addition, support is requested to take advantage of new opportunity presented by rodent suppression of legumes in rodent-accessible exclosures in southwestern Wisconsin using a series of experiments. These experiments use restoration techniques to test fundamental predictions from theories of animal foraging and plant competition. This work will contribute insight into the interactions of plants and animals that can only be garnered from an experimental approach, preferably carried out in synthetic assemblages rather than irreplaceable tallgrass prairie remnants.