Northern pintail nest site selection, nest success, renesting ecology and survival in the intensively farmed prairies of southern Saskatchewan:  an evaluation of the ecological trap hypothesis

Richkus, Kenneth D.

doi:10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.475

Cited by 6 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Patterns of nest habitat preference and nest survival provide critical information for waterfowl conservation planning given their joint influence on waterfowl recruitment (Reynolds et al 2001, Hoekman et al 2002). However, estimation of waterfowl exposure to agricultural disturbance has been hampered by incomplete estimates of relative nest habitat selection including use of annually cropped lands (Richkus 2002, Devries et al 2008 a ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Waterfowl distribution and productivity in the Prairie Pothole Region of Canada: tools for conservation planning

Devries

Armstrong

Howerter

et al. 2023

Wildlife Monographs

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Species conservation requires an understanding of the factors and interactions affecting species distribution and behavior, habitat availability and use, and corresponding vital rates at multiple temporal and spatial scales. Opportunities to investigate these relationships across broad geographic regions are rare. We combined long‐term waterfowl population surveys, and studies of habitat use and breeding success, to develop models that identify and incorporate these interactions for upland‐nesting waterfowl in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) of Canada. Specifically, we used data from the annual Waterfowl Breeding Population and Habitat Survey (1961–2009) at the survey segment level and associated habitat covariates to model and map the long‐term average duck density across the Canadian PPR. We analyzed nest location and fate data from approximately 25,000 duck nests found during 3 multi‐year nesting studies (1994–2011) to model factors associated with nest survival and habitat selection through the nesting season for the 5 most common upland nesting duck species: mallard (Anas platyrhynchos), gadwall (Mareca strepera), blue‐winged teal (Spatula discors), northern shoveler (Spatula clypeata), and northern pintail (Anas acuta). Duck density was highly variable across the Canadian PPR, reflecting positive responses to local wetland area and count, and amounts of cropland and grassland, a regional positive response to latitude, and a negative response to local amounts of tree cover. Nest survival was affected by temporal and spatial variables at multiple scales. Specifically, nest survival demonstrated interactive effects among species, nest initiation date, and nesting cover type and was influenced by relative annual wetness, population density, and surrounding landscape composition at landscape scales, and broad geographic gradients (east‐west and north‐south). Likewise, species‐specific probability of nest habitat selection was influenced by timing of nest initiation, population density, relative annual wetness, herbaceous cover, and tree cover in the surrounding landscape, and location within the Canadian PPR. We combined these models, with estimates of breeding effort (nesting, renesting, and nest attempts) from existing literature, in a stochastic conservation planning model that estimates nest distribution and success given spatiotemporal variation in duck density, habitat availability, and influential covariates. We demonstrate the use of this model by examining various conservation planning scenarios. These models allow estimation of local, landscape, and regional influence of conservation investments and other landscape changes on the productivity of breeding duck populations across the PPR of Canada. These models lay the groundwork for the incorporation of conservation delivery costs for full return‐on‐investment analyses and scenario analyses of climate, habitat, and land use change in regional and continental population models.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Waterfowl distribution and productivity in the Prairie Pothole Region of Canada: tools for conservation planning

Devries

Armstrong

Howerter

et al. 2023

Wildlife Monographs

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“…Previous work on northern pintail found that habitat selection and demography were related to proportion cropland in opposing ways, with pintail selecting for areas with a high proportion of cropland, but cropland negatively affecting the number of individuals the following year (Buderman et al, 2020). This pattern may be indicative of an ecological trap (Buderman et al, 2020), potentially due to reduced nest success or mortality (Richkus, 2002). We detected a similar pattern for blue‐winged teal, mallard and canvasbacks, however, their negative demographic response to cropland was not as extreme.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…northern pintail) had a stronger habitat selection coefficient for cropland, although the effect size did not meet our predefined threshold. This relationship likely occurs because cropland, prior to spring tillage, has a somewhat similar appearance and dominance on the landscape as the senescent grasses that historically dominated the prairie landscape in early spring (Beauchamp et al, 1996; McLachlan et al, 2007; Richkus, 2002). However, we did not predict the negative relationship with summerfallow, as summerfallow would appear the same to waterfowl regardless of when they arrive in the spring, which indicates that some early‐nesting species either show more selection for summerfallow‐type habitat, or association with the prairie where summerfallow was a more common practice to improve soil moisture (Carlyle, 1997) compared to late nesters.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In an environment that undergoes significant variation within the arrival period of migrants, we would expect that the habitat which maximizes fitness would be related to nesting phenology (Stearns, 1992; Verhulst & Nilsson, 2008), and therefore predicted strength of habitat selection to vary most strongly with a species' mean nesting date. Because the earliest upland nesters are likely arriving to the PPR prior to spring tillage, when crop stubble on the landscape is reminiscent of grassland prairie (Beauchamp et al, 1996; McLachlan et al, 2007; Richkus, 2002), we expected the earliest nesting species to apparently select areas with large amounts of cropland compared to later nesting species that can potentially use cues to avoid such habitat. We also expected later nesting species, compared to early nesting, to select areas within the PPR with a longer duration of snow cover, because areas with longer durations of snow cover would have fewer accessible wetlands when early‐nesting species arrive in spring (although no relationship might also be reasonable since migration can coincide with the chronology of snow melt).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…seeds are drilled into soil Best, 1986). Earlier mechanical spring tilling and planting can also destroy a large percentage of initial waterfowl nests, and may have a stronger effect on species that nest earlier in the spring, have a low preponderance for renesting and prefer to nest in standing stubble (Cowan, 1982;Duncan & Devries, 2018;Miller & Duncan, 1999;Richkus, 2002), likely affecting reproductive success (Duncan & Devries, 2018). These landscape-level changes, which are occurring at a much faster rate than they have over evolutionary timescales, have the potential to induce ecological traps if species are unable to detect the change in habitat quality (Hale & Swearer, 2016;Robertson & Chalfoun, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A life‐history spectrum of population responses to simultaneous change in climate and land use

Buderman

Devries

Koons

2023

Journal of Animal Ecology

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1. Climate and land use change are two of the primary threats to global biodiversity; however, each species within a community may respond differently to these facets of global change. Although it is typically assumed that species use the habitat that is advantageous for survival and reproduction, anthropogenic changes to the environment can create ecological traps, making it critical to assess both habitat selection (e.g. where species congregate on the landscape) and the influence of selected habitats on the demographic processes that govern population dynamics.2. We used a long-term , large-scale, multi-species dataset for waterfowl that spans the United States and Canada to estimate species-specific responses to climate and land use variables in a landscape that has undergone significant environmental change across space and time. We first estimated the effects of change in climate and land use variables on habitat selection and population dynamics for nine species. We then hypothesized that species-specific responses to environmental change would scale with life-history traits, specifically: longevity, nesting phenology and female breeding site fidelity.3. We observed species-level heterogeneity in the demographic and habitat selection responses to climate and land use change, which would complicate communitylevel habitat management. Our work highlights the importance of multi-species monitoring and community-level analysis, even among closely related species. 4. We detected several relationships between life-history traits, particularly nesting phenology, and species' responses to environmental change. One species, the early-nesting northern pintail (Anas acuta), was consistently at the extreme end of responses to land use and climate predictors and has been a species of conservation concern since their population began to decline in the 1980s. They, and the blue-winged teal, also demonstrated a positive habitat selection response to the proportion of cropland on the landscape that simultaneously reduced abundance the following year, indicative of susceptibility to ecological traps.

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Ecological and anthropogenic drivers of waterfowl productivity are synchronous across species, space, and time

Weegman,

Devries,

Clark

et al. 2024

Ecological Applications

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Knowledge of interspecific and spatiotemporal variation in demography–environment relationships is key for understanding the population dynamics of sympatric species and developing multispecies conservation strategies. We used hierarchical random‐effects models to examine interspecific and spatial variation in annual productivity in six migratory ducks (i.e., American wigeon [Mareca americana], blue‐winged teal [Spatula discors], gadwall [Mareca strepera], green‐winged teal [Anas crecca], mallard [Anas platyrhynchos] and northern pintail [Anas acuta]) across six distinct ecostrata in the Prairie Pothole Region of North America. We tested whether breeding habitat conditions (seasonal pond counts, agricultural intensification, and grassland acreage) or cross‐seasonal effects (indexed by flooded rice acreage in primary wintering areas) better explained variation in the proportion of juveniles captured during late summer banding. The proportion of juveniles (i.e., productivity) was highly variable within species and ecostrata throughout 1961–2019 and generally declined through time in blue‐winged teal, gadwall, mallard, pintail, and wigeon, but there was no support for a trend in green‐winged teal. Productivity in Canadian ecostrata declined with increasing agricultural intensification and increased with increasing pond counts. We also found a strong cross‐seasonal effect, whereby more flooded rice hectares during winter resulted in higher subsequent productivity. Our results suggest highly consistent environmental and anthropogenic effects on waterfowl productivity across species and space. Our study advances our understanding of current year and cross‐seasonal effects on duck productivity across a suite of species and at finer spatial scales, which could help managers better target working‐lands conservation programs on both breeding and wintering areas. We encourage other researchers to evaluate environmental drivers of population dynamics among species in a single modeling framework for a deeper understanding of whether conservation plans should be generalized or customized given limited financial resources.

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Northern pintail nest site selection, nest success, renesting ecology and survival in the intensively farmed prairies of southern Saskatchewan: an evaluation of the ecological trap hypothesis

Cited by 6 publications

References 5 publications

Waterfowl distribution and productivity in the Prairie Pothole Region of Canada: tools for conservation planning

Waterfowl distribution and productivity in the Prairie Pothole Region of Canada: tools for conservation planning

A life‐history spectrum of population responses to simultaneous change in climate and land use

Ecological and anthropogenic drivers of waterfowl productivity are synchronous across species, space, and time

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