Exploratory movements of a territorial sciurid: implications for disease transmission

Abstract Plague is a zoonotic vector‐borne disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis that impacts humans and wildlife around the world. One of the most well‐studied species in North America negatively impacted by plague is the black‐tailed prairie dog Cynomys ludovicianus . Black‐tailed prairie dogs are colonial, ground‐dwelling sciurids that live in territorial family groups called coteries. Previous plague transmission models have assumed that prairie dogs rarely move outside of their coteries and hence have little interaction with individuals outside of their family groups. Consequently, they would not contribute appreciably to intracolonial transmission of plague among coteries. We examined this assumption by attaching global positioning system (GPS) radio‐collars to document prairie dog spatial use, their coterie boundaries, and whether they move outside of their coteries. We recovered five out of six collared yearling male prairie dogs in Scotts Bluff National Monument in Nebraska, USA, and estimated their coterie boundaries using 95% minimum convex polygons and kernel density estimation. We found evidence suggesting that all five individuals made exploratory movements outside of their coteries, with two moving >100 m from their estimated boundary. Exploratory movements provide opportunities for direct contact with prairie dogs from other coteries or with their fleas. Our work provides a baseline for future studies of unknown aspects of prairie dog movement ecology that could alter how we model intracolonial plague transmission.