Their paper, titled "Overwintering Raptor Abundance and Community Composition in Relation to Prairie Dog Colonies in the Southern Great Plains," explains the first broad-scale look into the relationship between prairie dogs and their aerial predators, and illuminates an important trophic interaction with implications for raptor conservation through the lens of climate change.

Grasslands across North America have shrunk significantly since the 1970s, and for those remaining, habitat quality is a far cry from what it used to be. Since the '90s, the total population of grassland birds across North America has decreased by 53%, illustrating the link between grassland health and bird abundance. Grassland raptors, with their large spatial requirements, likely suffer graver consequences from these reductions in habitat quality than other birds.

Duchardt, from the Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management at Oklahoma State University, and her colleagues, provide strong evidence that the stability and predictability of prairie dog colonies provides an important prey source for overwintering raptors across the Southwest Great Plains. Between 1998 and 2002 the research team conducted winter road surveys in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and the Mexican state of Chihuahua.

Their results were illuminating—nine raptor species occurred in tandem with prairie dog colonies. Notably, bald eagles and rough-legged hawks were included in this pattern, even though they don't often encounter prairie dogs on their breeding grounds. However, as Duchardt points out, "prairie dogs are perfectly sized raptor-snacks," so it makes sense that both species would see them as caloric jackpots.