Demography of Female Greater Prairie-Chickens in Unfragmented Grasslands in Kansas

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Populations of Greater Prairie-Chickens (Tympanuchus cupido) have been declining because of loss and fragmentation of tallgrass prairie habitats, and management plans require contemporary demographic data. Our objectives were to determine whether maternal nutrition or predation were determinants of nesting success and female survival. We captured and radio-marked 43 females at four leks in natural, unfragmented prairie during a 4-year study. Reproductive potential was high because females laid large clutches (10.9 ± 0.3 eggs, n = 24), renested following clutch loss (22.2%, n = 27 females), and had high egg viability (88.6 ± 5.0% of eggs hatched; n = 7 nests), but reproductive traits were not correlated with female morphometrics (mass, or tarsus and keel lengths). Daily survival rate of nests was low (0.928, n = 34 nests) resulting in a predicted nest success rate of 7.4% for a 35-day exposure period. We used known fate models to estimate weekly survival from telemetry data for 40 females. Weekly survival was 0.970 and the extrapolated survival rate for the 6-month breeding season was 45.7%. Using time-sincemarking Cormack-Jolly-Seber models for live encounter data to control for transience, annual apparent survival was 0.277 ± 0.081 SE for 55 marked females after initial capture, and 0.424 ± 0.139 during subsequent intervals. Survival of females was 1.6 to 2.0 times higher during the nonbreeding season than the breeding season, presumably because females are susceptible to predation during incubation and broodrearing. Predation of nests and females may be the main demographic factors limiting population viability because predation, and not maternal nutrition, accounted for unexpectedly low nesting success and breeding season survival of Greater Prairie-Chickens in natural habitats. Future research should investigate rangeland practices that increase residual nesting cover or reduce predator impacts.RÉSUMÉ. Les populations de Tétras des prairies (Tympanuchus cupido) sont en déclin en raison de la perte et de la fragmentation des milieux de prairie à grandes graminées. Les plans de gestion doivent donc s'appuyer sur des données démographiques contemporaines. L'objectif de cette étude était de déterminer si l'alimentation des femelles et la prédation sont des facteurs importants du succès de reproduction et de la survie des femelles. Nous avons capturé et muni de radios 43 femelles provenant de quatre arènes dans des prairies naturelles non fragmentées, au cours d'une étude de quatre ans. Le potentiel de reproduction était élevé étant donné que les femelles produisaient de grosses couvées (10,9 ± 0,3 oeufs, n = 24), qu'elles pouvaient renicher lorsque la première avait échoué (22,2 %, n = 27 femelles) et que la viabilité des oeufs était élevée (88,6 ± 5,0 % d'oeufs éclos; n = 7 nids), mais ces paramètres de reproduction n'étaient pas corrélés avec les mesures morphométriques des femelles (masse, longueur du tarse et du bréchet). Le faible taux de survie quotidien des nids (0,928, n = 34 nids) s'est tradui...

Effects of wind energy development on survival of female greater prairie‐chickens

“…; Svedarsky et al . ; Augustine & Sandercock ; Hess & Beck ). Lek abandonment by greater sage‐grouse Centrocercus urophasianus has been associated with proximity to oil and gas wells (Hess & Beck ).…”

“…Predation is often the primary cause of mortality in prairie grouse populations (Hagen et al . ; Augustine & Sandercock ; McNew et al . ), and we predicted wind energy development might indirectly affect prairie‐chicken populations by altering trophic interactions with predators.…”

Environmental Impacts of Wind Power Development on the Population Biology of Greater Prairie-Chickens

“…Lek count data from monitoring programs of the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks, and Tourism indicate that prairie chicken numbers have declined in Kansas during the past 30 years (Rodgers 2008). Prairie chickens are thought to be sensitive to disturbance because they have large home ranges, and females may move up to 30 km from lek sites to nest (Robel et al 1970, Schroeder 1991, Augustine and Sandercock 2011. Previous studies have provided evidence that female prairie chickens may avoid disturbance from oil and gas development and power lines (Pitman et al 2005, Pruett et al 2009, Hagen et al 2011).…”

Full Issue

“…unequal monitoring intervals among animals and time; see Rotella et al 2004). The nest survival model (Dinsmore et al 2002) in Program MARK , however, has been extended to accept ragged radiotelemetry data for evaluation of survival; it allows the inclusion of group and individual covariates, as well as complex time structures and time-varying covariates (e.g., Hartke et al 2006, Mong and Sandercock 2007, Collier et al 2009, Augustine and Sandercock 2011, Gue et al 2013). Thus, we reconceptualized the widely used nest survival model to evaluate the influence of various environmental factors on the timing of seasonal movements of juvenile Greater Sage-Grouse.…”