Small mammals in successional prairie woodlands of the northern Great Plains

Prairie woodlands comprise about 1 percent of the landscape in the northern Great Plains. However, prairie woodlands provide habitat for far more than 1 percent of the wildlife species that occur in the prairie region. With increasing pressures on natural resources, managers need methods for managing wildlife habitat and biodiversity that are based on ecological processes. We studied the small mammals and vegetation in seral stages of four woodland types in central South Dakota. None of the species was restricted to a single seral stage, but abundance of some small mammals varied depending on seral stages of woodland types. To ensure the biodiversity of the prairie, managers should retain all seral stages of all prairie woodlands.