Black‐backed woodpecker abundance in the Black Hills

Abstract

The Black Hills population of black‐backed woodpeckers (Picoides arcticus) was petitioned, but deemed not warranted, to be listed as a threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act and more information on their population size in the region is needed. Our objective was to map abundance and provide a population estimate of black‐backed woodpeckers in the Black Hills and Bear Lodge Mountains of South Dakota and Wyoming, USA. We conducted 3,666 and 3,384 5‐minute point count surveys from late‐March to late‐June in 2015 and 2016, respectively. We characterized vegetation around each point using geographic information system‐derived landscape variables and fit 3‐level hierarchical time‐removal models in R package unmarked using gmultmix. The global abundance model received the most support and included year, latitude, and percent area of green trees, beetle‐killed trees, dead trees, 1‐ to 2‐year‐old wildfire, 3‐year‐old wildfire, and 4‐ to 5‐year‐old wildfire. Points with high percent cover of beetle‐killed trees had the greatest density of black‐backed woodpeckers, followed by 1‐ to 2‐year‐old wildfires. After 4 years, areas burned by wildfire supported lower densities of black‐backed woodpeckers than undisturbed forests. Mean density was 0.528 birds/km2 in 2015 and 0.626 birds/km2 in 2016. There were an estimated 2,920 and 3,439 black‐backed woodpeckers in the Black Hills and Bear Lodge Mountains in 2015 and 2016, respectively. We suggest areas with high percent cover of beetle‐killed trees may support high densities of black‐backed woodpeckers and are important to sustaining populations when the availability of recent (<4 years old) wildfire is declining or scarce. Published 2018. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

Is green the new black? Black-backed Woodpecker vital rates do not differ between unburned and burned forests within a pyrodiverse landscape

“…In addition, both studies found evidence of nesting in green forest, although they reported nesting densities that were lower than what is typically found within recently burned areas (Fogg et al 2014, Verschuyl et al 2021). Taken together, these findings expand upon previous investigations that have found the Black-backed Woodpecker nesting in green forest in other parts of its range, including the boreal forest of eastern Canada (Tremblay et al 2009, 2015b) and in ponderosa pine ( Pinus ponderosa ) forest of the Black Hills, South Dakota, USA, following mountain pine beetle ( Dendroctonus ponderosae ) outbreaks (Bonnot et al 2008, Rota et al 2014, Matseur et al 2018). These studies further suggest that green forests may support productive nesting Black-backed Woodpecker populations in the western part of its range, which is contrary to the notion that green forests act as population sinks for this species (Hutto 1995).…”

“…To cover the range of green forest used by Black-backed Woodpeckers in the broader landscape, we targeted our searches to green forest that was classified as 1 of the 4 composition types described above (i.e., lodgepole pine, ponderosa pine, mixed conifer, and mixed pine) and contained potential nest trees of a minimum of 15-cm DBH (Verschuyl et al 2021). The green forest areas we nest-searched were generally absent of major disturbance, differentiating our study from prior research in green forest dominated by beetle-killed trees (Bonnot et al 2008, Rota et al 2014, Matseur et al 2018, Tingley et al 2020. We also searched for nests in recently burned conifer forest in areas that were interspersed with green forest throughout our focal landscape (Figure 1), including the 2017 North Pelican Fire (1,452 ha), the 2017 Blanket Creek Fire (13,484 ha), the 2018 Timber Crater 6 Fire (1,265 ha), the 2020 Thielsen Fire (4,037 ha), and the 2020 Two Four Two Fire (5,857 ha).…”

Konzentrierte Nahrungssuche bei Magellanspechten: Die Bedeutung von Baumalter, Waldzusammensetzung und Offenhabitaten

“…Animals with stable territories, specialized diets and narrow habitat choices, such as some woodpecker species, are known to adjust their space use and movements based on the spatio-temporal heterogeneity of habitat resources [1,2]. Those animal species concentrate their movements in the habitats of higher foraging quality [3,4], [5,6,7], a behavior known as area-restricted search (ARS) that, in many cases, involves the use of spatial memory to return to suitable sites within territories [8,9]. Determining the areas where animals concentrate their movements and foraging activity not only contributes to understand decision-making behavior or foraging e ciency but also to the identi cation of feeding areas important for the conservation of vulnerable species [10,11,12,13].…”

Removal modelling in ecology: A systematic review

“…There is a worldwide interest in identifying tools for effective estimation of species population size and removal models show great potential for application in a wide range of situations, such as species relocation projects and control of exotic invasive species. Even if the original aim of this method was to deplete a species, and some of the studies included in this review use the method for this purpose [ 2 , 22 , 107 , 108 , 113 , 117 , 119 ], most of the studies included in this review were focused on understanding abundance of a particular species due to general interest (for example [ 78 , 81 – 84 , 88 , 143 ]). However, as a management tool it has been used not only to estimate abundance [ 12 , 144 ], but also, to estimate catchability [ 35 , 66 , 68 , 109 , 118 ], migration [ 13 , 43 , 71 , 85 ], habitat selection [ 64 , 77 , 96 ], endangered species [ 26 , 116 , 145 ], population dynamics [ 90 , 103 , 124 ] or translocation [ 23 ].…”