01743nas a2200181   4500008004100000245009900041210006900140300001300209490000600222520109900228653002701327653001301354653002101367653001801388653001201406100001801418856012501436       1993                        eng d00aArea-restricted search by plains pocket gopher (Geomys bursarius) in tallgrass prairie habitat0 aArearestricted search by plains pocket gopher Geomys bursarius i  a318 -3240 v43 aBecause pocket gophers have the high energetic cost of excavating burrows and an inability to detect distant food items through the soil, I hypothesized that individuals within established burrow systems would use area-restricted search as a foraging strategy. To examine this hypothesis I compared gopher foraging effort over a 10-month period between areas in which overall plant densities were experimentally varied. Gophers expended approximately 50% of their foraging effort in areas with the highest plant density, even though these made up only 33% of the available area in experimental plots. In large, gridded areas sampled for an entire season as well as in small areas in which gophers foraged for less than 1 week, gopher foraging effort was related to the density of a single leguminous plant species, Psoralea argophylla. In small plots where this plant species was at high density, gophers created more tunnel branches, thereby intensifying their search effort. Thus, area-restricted search appears to increase the rate of encounter with the patchily distributed Psoralea plants.10aarea restricted search10aforaging10aGeomys bursarius10apocket gopher10aPsorela1 aBenedix, J.H.  uhttp://lter.konza.ksu.edu/content/area-restricted-search-plains-pocket-gopher-geomys-bursarius-tallgrass-prairie-habitat