The physical modification of habitat by the rodents can create patches with altered species richness relative to adjacent, unmodified habitats. The majority of studies found a positive correlation between engineering patches and animal species richness/diversity/abundance. In this paper, we show occupancy of wheatear (Oenanthe isabellina) in engineering patches created by Mongolian marmot (Marmota sibirica) and no engineering in different habitat types of the arid steppe ecosystem. We surveyed 123 sites for Isabelline wheatear in Hustai National Park, Mongolia in 2016. We used a model selection approach to evaluate the effect of marmot burrows and other potential variables on occupancy probability. We detected Isabelline wheatear in 46.34% of the surveys (171 of 369). Our top model indicated that occupancy was strongly influenced by marmot burrows. The estimated wheatear occupancy was 0.95 at a burrow site and 0.64 at a non-burrow site. Detection was a function of temperature and highest around 24.6 ºC. Our results indicate that Isabelline wheatear distribution is strongly influenced by marmots as burrows presumably provide it with important habitat resources. The loss of marmots will probably have direct effects on the distribution of the breeding bird and the ecosystem processes they support. Our study provides one of the few examples of the role of marmots in influencing breeding birds and supports the notion of marmots as a keystone species.

啮齿动物对栖息地的物理改变可以产生相对于相邻的、未改变的栖息地具有改变的物种丰富度的斑块。大多数研究发现工程补丁与动物物种丰富度/多样性/丰度之间存在正相关关系。在本文中，我们展示了蒙古旱獭（Marmota sibirica ）创建的工程斑块中小麦穗（ Oenanthe isabellina ）的占有率) 并且在干旱草原生态系统的不同栖息地类型中没有工程。2016 年，我们调查了蒙古胡斯泰国家公园的 123 个伊莎贝尔麦穗地点。我们使用模型选择方法来评估土拨鼠洞穴和其他潜在变量对入住概率的影响。我们在 46.34% 的调查（369 次中的 171 次）中检测到了伊莎贝尔小麦。我们的顶级模型表明，入住率受到土拨鼠洞穴的强烈影响。在洞穴地点估计麦穗占有率为 0.95，在非洞穴地点为 0.64。检测是温度的函数，最高约为 24.6 ºC。我们的研究结果表明，伊莎贝尔麦穗分布受到土拨鼠的强烈影响，因为洞穴可能为它提供了重要的栖息地资源。土拨鼠的丧失可能会对繁殖鸟类的分布及其支持的生态系统过程产生直接影响。我们的研究提供了土拨鼠在影响繁殖鸟类方面的作用的少数例子之一，并支持土拨鼠作为关键物种的概念。