Culture Chronology in the Central Great Plains

Waldo R. Wedel

doi:10.2307/275702

Culture Chronology in the Central Great Plains

American Antiquity ◽

10.2307/275702 ◽

1947 ◽

Vol 12 (3Part1) ◽

pp. 148-156 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Waldo R. Wedel

Keyword(s):

Great Plains ◽

Armed Forces ◽

Rapid Expansion ◽

Northern Great Plains ◽

Vanishing Point ◽

Field Investigations ◽

Laboratory Workers

Archaeology in the central and northern Great Plains stands today on the threshold of what may be its outstanding opportunity for sustained achievement. The intensive field investigations so auspiciously launched in Nebraska, Kansas, and the Dakotas in the decade before the war, have been at a virtual standstill since 1940; and with the rapid expansion of the nation's armed forces and defense industries, the number of students and laboratory workers available for study of the accumulated data and collections, dwindled nearly or quite to the vanishing point. Here and there, a few individuals found it possible, intermittently and subsidiary to war-connected activities, to carry on limited researches.

Download Full-text

Conventional oil and natural gas infrastructure increases brown-headed cowbird ( Molothrus ater ) relative abundance and parasitism in mixed-grass prairie

Royal Society Open Science ◽

10.1098/rsos.170036 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 4 (7) ◽

pp. 170036 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Jacy Bernath-Plaisted ◽

Heather Nenninger ◽

Nicola Koper

Keyword(s):

Natural Gas ◽

Great Plains ◽

Relative Abundance ◽

Brood Parasitism ◽

Molothrus Ater ◽

Rapid Expansion ◽

Northern Great Plains ◽

Brood Parasite ◽

Parasitism Rates ◽

Oil And Natural Gas

The rapid expansion of oil and natural gas development across the Northern Great Plains has contributed to habitat fragmentation, which may facilitate brood parasitism of ground-nesting grassland songbird nests by brown-headed cowbirds ( Molothrus ater ), an obligate brood parasite, through the introduction of perches and anthropogenic edges. We tested this hypothesis by measuring brown-headed cowbird relative abundance and brood parasitism rates of Savannah sparrow ( Passerculus sandwichensis ) nests in relation to the presence of infrastructure features and proximity to potential perches and edge habitat. The presence of oil and natural gas infrastructure increased brown-headed cowbird relative abundance by a magnitude of four times, which resulted in four times greater brood parasitism rates at infrastructure sites. While the presence of infrastructure and the proximity to roads were influential in predicting brood parasitism rates, the proximity of perch sites was not. This suggests that brood parasitism associated with oil and natural gas infrastructure may result in additional pressures that reduce productivity of this declining grassland songbird.

Download Full-text