PDOG MAPR: A Decision Support Tool to Inform Management of Prairie Dog Ecosystems

Structured frameworks for Conservation Decision Making are increasingly used to guide complex land and wildlife management by fostering transparency, informed decision processes, and collaborative input. These tools are particularly valuable in working rangelands, where managers must balance ecological integrity with agricultural productivity amid mounting environmental pressures. In North America’s Central Grasslands, black-tailed prairie dogs ( Cynomys ludovicianus )—a keystone species often in conflict with livestock production—and the introduced pathogen, Yersinia pestis , create boom–bust colony dynamics that challenge management. We introduce PDOG MAPR, the first publicly accessible, web-based decision-support tool for prairie dog conservation and management. Users upload colony shapefiles, set management scenarios, and generate spatially explicit forecasts of colony-area trajectories and plague-outbreak risk. We demonstrate the tool with two case studies from the Central Grasslands, evaluating 1) plague mitigation and 2) lethal control along public–private boundaries. PDOG MAPR predicted that unmanaged colonies tend to expand and then collapse following plague, replicating patterns reported from plague-endemic regions, whereas plague mitigation prevented major population crashes and increased population stability. Our results show that management choices can meaningfully alter colony trajectories, underscoring the value of predictive tools for scenario-based, proactive planning. Although PDOG MAPR’s predictions are not deterministic, the tool provides a flexible, data-driven platform to identify when and where to apply interventions to 1) meet site-specific objectives, 2) reduce the risk of large-scale colony collapse, and 3) support coexistence between prairie dog ecosystems and surrounding land uses. By translating complex dynamics into spatially explicit, manager-ready outputs, PDOG MAPR complements local expertise and facilitates dialogue among agencies, producers, and conservation practitioners. A public version is available for planning. More broadly, PDOG MAPR contributes to the growing suite of decision-support resources for multiuse grasslands and advances integrated planning that optimizes limited resources, supports biodiversity, and promotes coexistence on working lands.