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Impact Of The Black-Tailed Jackrabbits (Lepus Californicus) On Vegetation In Curlew Valley, Northern Utah, Mark Westoby
Impact Of The Black-Tailed Jackrabbits (Lepus Californicus) On Vegetation In Curlew Valley, Northern Utah, Mark Westoby
All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023
The interrelations of black-tailed jackrabbits and the desert-shrub vegetation on which they were feeding were studied in Curlew Valley, Northern Utah. The vegetation was described as a three-cornered continuum, the corners being types dominated respectively by Artemisia tridentata, Atriplex confertifolia, and Sarcobatus vermiculatus.
Jackrabbit diet was studied by microscopic analysis of plant fragments in stomachs from shot animals. The method was inaccurate, apparently because the ratio of identifiable tissues to all ingested tissues was very low, and varied between plant taxa, and seasonally. This problem seems intractable for desert shrub vegetation.
The diet was similar to that …