Annual and seasonal survival of adult female Mottled Ducks in southern Florida, USA

Varner, Dana M.; Hepp, Gary R.; Bielefeld, Ronald R.

doi:10.1650/condor-13-078.1

Cited by 14 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 117 publications

(149 reference statements)

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“…Overall, our annual survival estimates are lower than any other previously estimated in Texas (Stutzenbaker ; Haukos ,; Rigby and Haukos ) or in Florida (Bielefeld and Cox , Varner et al ). However, estimated annual survival rates had 95% confidence intervals that overlapped estimates calculated using band‐recovery data (50.9%, 95% CI = 48.6–53.3; Haukos ).…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 85%

Seasonal survival of adult female mottled ducks

2017

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The mottled duck (Anas fulgivula) is a non-migratory duck dependent on coastal habitats to meet all of its life cycle requirements in the Western Gulf Coast (WGC) of Texas and Louisiana, USA. This population of mottled ducks has experienced a moderate decline during the past 2 decades. Adult survival has been identified as an important factor influencing population demography. Previous work based on band-recovery data has provided only annual estimates of survival. We assessed seasonal patterns of female mottled duck survival from 2009 to 2012 using individuals marked with satellite platform transmitter terminals (PTTs). We used temperature and movement sensors within each PTT to indicate potential mortality events. We estimated cumulative weekly survival and ranked factors influential in patterns of mortality using known-fate modeling in Program MARK. Models included 4 predictors: week; hunting and non-hunting periods; biological periods defined as breeding, brooding, molt, and pairing; and mass at time of capture. Models containing hunt periods, during and outside the mottled duck season, comprised essentially 100% of model weights where both legal and illegal harvest had a negative influence on mottled duck survival. Survival rates were low during 2009-2011 (12-38% annual rate of survival), when compared with the long-term banding average of 53% annual survival. During 2011, survival of female mottled ducks was the lowest annual rate (12%) ever documented and coincided with extreme drought. Management actions maximizing the availability of wetlands and associated upland habitats during hunting seasons and drought conditions may increase adult female mottled duck survival. Ó

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 85%

Seasonal survival of adult female mottled ducks

2017

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“…Seasonal survival rates of female mallards wintering in the LMAV ( Ŝ = 0.54; Davis et al ) and Mississippi ( Ŝ = 0.60; Lancaster ) were similarly low, although hunting was not the primary cause of mortality in these studies. In contrast, greater survival rates have been reported previously in wintering areas for mallards in Mississippi ( Ŝ = 0.82; Reinecke et al ) and California ( Ŝ = 0.49–0.83; Fleskes et al ), black ducks ( Anas rubripes ) in Tennessee ( Ŝ = 0.83–0.85; Newcomb et al ), northern pintail in Texas ( Ŝ = 0.78; Bergan and Smith ) and California ( Ŝ = 0.77–0.93; Fleskes et al ), and mottled ducks ( Anas fulvigula ) in Florida ( Ŝ = 0.81–0.96; Varner et al ). Interestingly, Dugger et al () reported no mortalities of female mallards during late winter (i.e., post‐hunting season, Ŝ = 0.99) in Arkansas.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 73%

Mallard survival, movements, and habitat use during autumn in Illinois

et al. 2017

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The Illinois River Valley (IRV) in central Illinois, USA, provides migratory stopover habitat for millions of waterfowl during autumn and spring in the Mississippi Flyway. Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) are the most abundant species of waterfowl during autumn migration and the most harvested duck in Illinois. We investigated mallard migration ecology in central Illinois, USA, to address information needs of biologists and managers in the Upper Mississippi River and Great Lake Region Joint Venture and Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Our objectives were to document daily movements and identify factors affecting interwetland movements, investigate lengths of foraging flights, assess home range size during stopover, describe habitat use and identify factors associated with wetland use, estimate survival and cause specific mortality, and evaluate proportional use of refuges and areas open to hunting in and nearby the IRV by mallards. We employed standard radio-telemetry techniques to achieve our objectives during autumns and early winters 2009 and 2010 (n ¼ 86 F and 56 M mallards). The mean movement distance between locations collected on consecutive days was 2,822 AE 120 (SE) m (n ¼ 1,862; max. ¼ 56,966 m) across age, sex, and months. Female mallards (n ¼ 35) traveled 2,708 AE 191 m during evening foraging flights (n ¼ 145) to agricultural fields and emergent marshes. Mean home range size (95% minimum convex polygon) was 21,306 AE 1,925 ha across sex and age classes (n ¼ 81 mallards). We documented 43 mortalities of 142 radio-marked mallards (2009: 28.2%; 2010: 32.3%) with 85.0% and 69.6% of deaths attributed to hunting in 2009 and 2010, respectively. Body condition, hunting period, age, year, minimum daily temperature, and daily movement distance were important variables affecting survival, but differences were most pronounced for year and hunting period.

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“…Our hypothesis proposing the existence of adaptive differences in pace of life between urban and rural populations of the same species is founded on the following observations: (1) there is both inter-and intraspecific variation in pace of life along latitudinal and altitudinal gradients, showing that birds can adjust to environmental changes by adjusting their life-history strategy (Boyle et al, 2016;Hille & Cooper, 2015;Jimenez et al, 2014;Martin et al, 2006;Pap et al, 2015;Wiersma et al, 2007;Wikelski et al, 2003); (2) there is a general trend towards higher survival in urban habitats in birds (i.e. Rebolo-Ifran et al, 2015;Stracey & Robinson, 2012;Varner, Hepp, & Bielefeld, 2014; reviewed further below); and (3) we know that environmental factors affecting survival (i.e. predation risk, food availability, parasite abundance) can push the life history along the same physiologically constrained path of variation, producing a restricted set of life-history outcomes (Ricklefs & Wikelski, 2002).…”

Section: Th E Urbanization Gradientmentioning

confidence: 99%

A review of urban impacts on avian life‐history evolution: Does city living lead to slower pace of life?

Sepp

McGraw

Kaasik

et al. 2017

Global Change Biology

126

145

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The concept of a pace-of-life syndrome describes inter- and intraspecific variation in several life-history traits along a slow-to-fast pace-of-life continuum, with long lifespans, low reproductive and metabolic rates, and elevated somatic defences at the slow end of the continuum and the opposite traits at the fast end. Pace-of-life can vary in relation to local environmental conditions (e.g. latitude, altitude), and here we propose that this variation may also occur along an anthropogenically modified environmental gradient. Based on a body of literature supporting the idea that city birds have longer lifespans, we predict that urban birds have a slower pace-of-life compared to rural birds and thus invest more in self maintenance and less in annual reproduction. Our statistical meta-analysis of two key traits related to pace-of-life, survival and breeding investment (clutch size), indicated that urban birds generally have higher survival, but smaller clutch sizes. The latter finding (smaller clutches in urban habitats) seemed to be mainly a characteristic of smaller passerines. We also reviewed urbanization studies on other traits that can be associated with pace-of-life and are related to either reproductive investment or self-maintenance. Though sample sizes were generally too small to conduct formal meta-analyses, published literature suggests that urban birds tend to produce lower-quality sexual signals and invest more in offspring care. The latter finding is in agreement with the adult survival hypothesis, proposing that higher adult survival prospects favour investment in fewer offspring per year. According to our hypothesis, differences in age structure should arise between urban and rural populations, providing a novel alternative explanation for physiological differences and earlier breeding. We encourage more research investigating how telomere dynamics, immune defences, antioxidants and oxidative damage in different tissues vary along the urbanization gradient, and suggest that applying pace-of-life framework to studies of variation in physiological traits along the urbanization gradient might be the next direction to improve our understanding of urbanization as an evolutionary process.

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Annual and seasonal survival of adult female Mottled Ducks in southern Florida, USA

Cited by 14 publications

References 117 publications

Seasonal survival of adult female mottled ducks

Seasonal survival of adult female mottled ducks

Mallard survival, movements, and habitat use during autumn in Illinois

A review of urban impacts on avian life‐history evolution: Does city living lead to slower pace of life?

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