Effect of Habitat Management on Duck Behavior and Distribution During Spring Migration in Indiana

Abstract

Spring migration is an important life stage for ducks because their ability to find and acquire nutrients can affect subsequent reproductive success. Therefore, providing sufficient habitat to support the energetic needs of ducks and facilitate efficient feeding is a goal of habitat management and restoration. The rapid, unpredictable flood events that regularly occur in highly modified landscapes can make habitat management challenging and justify diverse management strategies. We examined the effect of habitat management on dabbling duck behavior and distribution during spring migration in southwest Indiana. We investigated three management options for wetlands: active management, passive management, and unmanaged agricultural food plots. We assessed duck behavior and density on 14 wetlands at Patoka River National Wildlife Refuge and Management Area. The agricultural food-plot areas had the lowest estimates of food availability followed by the actively managed areas; the passively managed wetlands had the greatest estimate. Dabbling duck density was greatest on the actively managed wetlands followed by food plots coming in second and passively managed wetlands third. Most dabbling ducks fed more intensively while on the passively managed wetlands followed by the actively managed and food-plot wetlands. Conservation prioritization of passively managed areas would provide larger areas for dabbling ducks to feed, but active management provides habitat regardless of climatic variability. Moving forward, wetland complexes encompassing diverse wetland management approaches would be the best option for spring-migrating waterfowl as these complexes can provide high-quality habitats and buffer against uncontrollable climactic conditions.

Ignoring uncertainty in predictor variables leads to false confidence in results: a case study of duck habitat use

“…By flushing ducks out of any vegetation, observers could accurately count ducks as they flushed into the air. Flush counts are a relatively common way of counting ducks in areas where detection probability may otherwise be < 1 (Linz et al 1998, St. James et al 2013, Lindstrom et al 2020).…”

“…For example, in a study attempting to identify predictors of bird abundance among montane meadows, vegetation samples were taken within each site and the site‐level means were used as covariates in regression models (Saveraid et al 2001). Using site‐level means as covariates seems to be the standard way information derived from samples is included as covariates in analyses (Kalies et al 2012, Pilliod et al 2013, Wimp et al 2019, Lindstrom et al 2020). Under this scenario, no bias is suspected because the covariate is based on multiple samples from each site.…”

The role of reed management and habitat quality on brood parasitism and chick survival of the brood parasitic Common Cuckoo

“…This decline, however, can be reverted by applying conservation measures in the breeding grounds to improve nesting habitats and food availability (Denerley et al, 2019 ; Hewson et al, 2016 ). Both nesting habitat quality and amount of food resources can be influenced by habitat management (e.g., Battisti et al, 2020 ; Lindstrom et al, 2020 ; Mérő et al, 2020 ). Habitat management can help in creating habitat fragments with vegetation patches of different ages (e.g., reed habitats), thus influencing the breeding density of potential Cuckoo hosts (Battisti et al, 2020 ; Mortelliti et al, 2012 ; Sozio et al, 2013 ).…”