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Nest Success and Cause-Specific Nest Failure of Grassland Passerines Breeding in Prairie Grazed by Livestock
Citation:
JOHNSON, T. N., P. L. KENNEDY, AND M. ETTERSON. Nest Success and Cause-Specific Nest Failure of Grassland Passerines Breeding in Prairie Grazed by Livestock. JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT. Wildlife Society, Bethesda, MD, 76(8):1607-1616, (2012).
Impact/Purpose:
This study represents an important field test of the program MCestimate and will be instrumental in alerting a diverse user community to the availability of this new model.
Description:
This manuscript describes two years of field research on ground-nesting songbird species at Zumwalt Prairie Reserve, northeastern Oregon, USA. Cattle-grazing has long been suspected in declines of ground-nesting songbirds in grazed grassland, primarily due to increased trampling of nests. However, until now methods for separating mortality due to cattle-trampling, from other causes of nest-failure (predation, adverse weather, etc.) have been difficult or lacking entirely. The authors used the program MCestimate, under development by M. Etterson at USEPA/ORD/NHEERL/MED to analyze cause-specific nest failure rates and found that cattle trampling rates were not as important as previously believed, compared to nest predation rates. This study represents an important field test of the program MCestimate and will be instrumental in alerting a diverse user community to the availability of this new model.