Cerulean Warbler Reproduction, Survival, and Models of Population Decline

Abstract

We present and compare demographic data for cerulean warblers (Dendroica cerulea) from 5 study sites across the range of the species from 1992 to 2006. We conducted field studies to collect data on daily nest survival, nest success, and young fledged per successful nest, and we used data to estimate fecundity. Daily nest survival, nest success, young fledged, and fecundity varied widely across the cerulean range and among years. Study sites in agriculture‐dominated landscapes (Mississippi Alluvial Valley, IN, and MI, USA) had negative growth rates in all years monitored because measured values of nest success and young produced per successful nest were incapable of offsetting apparent mortality. Ontario (Canada) and Tennessee (USA) populations had greater nest success and fecundity but still appeared to be incapable of producing stable populations (λ = 1) under field‐measured and assumed conditions. We had survival data only for one site (Ontario); thus, additional survival data are greatly needed to enable more reliable estimates of population growth. Conservation strategies for cerulean warblers in agriculture‐dominated landscapes (e.g., Mississippi Alluvial Valley, IN, and MI) may require major landscape‐level habitat reconfiguration to change agriculture‐dominated landscapes to forest‐dominated landscapes to increase fecundity. Conservation strategies in predominantly forested landscapes in the core of the range (e.g., TN) require a focus on minimizing habitat loss and developing management prescriptions capable of improving fecundity. In both cases, based on sensitivity and elasticity analyses, efforts to improve survival during the nonbreeding season would have the greatest positive effect on population growth. (JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT 72(3):646–653; 2008)

Emulating Natural Disturbances for Declining Late-Successional Species: A Case Study of the Consequences for Cerulean Warblers (Setophaga cerulea)

“…These sites were: Royal Blue Wildlife Management Area, TN (RB), Sundquist Forest, TN (SQ), Raccoon Ecological Management Area, OH (REMA), Daniel Boone National Forest, KY (DB), Lewis Wetzel Wildlife Management Area, WV (LW), Wyoming County, WV (WYO), and Monongahela National Forest, WV (MON). The two most southern sites (RB and SQ) were both located in the Cumberland Mountains, an ecophysiographically distinct section of the Appalachian chain [45], [46] that has previously been identified as a critical breeding locale for the species [47], [48]. Thus, we refer to these two sites hereafter as the “southern region” and the other five study sites as the “northern region.” Because cerulean warblers often require large tracts of contiguous forest [26], we selected sites embedded within a matrix of mature forest; mean percent forest cover within 10 km of the site center was 83.2±2.8 [SE]% (range = 74–95%, 2001 NLCD).…”

“…We employed a deterministic population model, following Buehler et al [47], to explore how the reproductive consequences of our treatments may affect regional source-sink dynamics. Input parameters included regionally and treatment-specific nest success and number of young produced/successful nest (as we detected regional variability in reproductive output, see results) derived from this study, as well as external estimates of after-hatch-year (AHY) and hatch-year (HY) survival, proportion of individuals that attempt to re-nest after failing, and number of re-nesting attempts.…”

Think globally, manage locally: The importance of steady-state forest features for a declining songbird

“…For sites that had >5 nests, average daily survival for Cerulean Warblers ranged from 0.936 to 0.985 and averaged 0.951 AE 0.006 S.E. across all sites, which corresponds to 19-69% nesting success based on a 25-day nesting period (Buehler et al, 2008). Using Program Mark, the best temporal model explaining daily Several vegetation features explained variation in daily nest survival (Table 6).…”

Archaic and contemporary topographic diversification of Upper Mississippi River forests

“…The UMRS provides critical nesting habitat for many migratory birds including the Cerulean Warbler, a species that has declined at a rate equal to or exceeding those of all other Nearctic‐Neotropical migratory birds (Buehler et al ). This species was selected as a focal species by the U.S.…”