Ecology
Plains pocket gophers prefer deep, sandy, crumbly soils to facilitate their burrowing lifestyle and their herbivorous diet of plant roots. The local vegetation is less significant than the nature of the soil, and the gophers are found in prairie grasslands, agricultural land, and even urban areas.
A long-term controlled study of tunnel excavation by plains pocket gophers found that the rate of tunnel construction ranges from a high of 2,059 cm/week of new tunnels to a low of zero over several weeks during the summer. 30 to 50 metres (98 to 160 ft) of tunnels were open at any one time. Factors affecting the size of the tunnel system appeared to be influenced more by the amount of energy needed to maintain and patrol it rather than the amount of vegetation present. Tunnels include nests, located about 50 centimetres (20 in) underground, and lined with grass and other plant material, as well as food caches containing grasses, roots, and tubers.
The gophers share their tunnels with numerous species of insect, including flies, scarab and carrion beetles, and cave crickets. Known predators include rattlesnakes, prairie kingsnakes, gopher snakes, feral cats, coyotes, foxes, badgers, hawks, and owls.
Read more about this topic: Plains Pocket Gopher
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