2022 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Virtual Conference
March 13 - 15, 2022
9/26/2018 | 3:45 PM - 4:00 PM | Reduced Female Survival During Reproduction in Ruffed Grouse. | Eccles Conference Center Auditorium
Reduced Female Survival During Reproduction in Ruffed Grouse.
Adult survival during reproduction is an important and often overlooked contributor to the reproductive success of grouse populations. The ability of managers to promote populations of forest grouse is enhanced with a greater understanding of how forest characteristics and reproductive status affect habitat use and adult survival. We monitored survival of radio-marked ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus) females during nesting and brood-rearing in central Maine, USA, and evaluated how forest characteristics affected habitat use and female survival during these stages. Despite females selecting nests sites with greater conifer stem densities (beta = 0.075 ± 0.054 85% CI), we found that this habitat characteristic was associated with reduced female survival while nesting (beta = -0.333 ± 0.224 85% CI). Female survival while nesting was also negatively associated with the presence of coarse woody debris (beta = -1.057 ± 0.778 85% CI) and greater basal area (beta = -0.632 ± 0.472 85% CI) at nest sites. We observed that weekly survival rates were reduced for brood-rearing females (S = 0.9551 ± 0.0220 SE) compared with non-reproductive individuals (S = 0.9973 ± 0.0027 SE), however we were unable to detect any strong associations between survival of brood-rearing females and the forest characteristics these individuals selected. We observed 71.6% and 76.0% female survival while nesting and brood-rearing, respectively, inferring that ~46% of reproductive ruffed grouse females were killed by predators. We provide management recommendations that may mitigate sources of mortality to ruffed grouse females, thereby enhancing the reproductive potential of this population.
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Presenters/Authors
Joelle Mangelinckx
(), jmangelinckx92@gmail.com;
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Samantha Davis
(), samantha.davis2@maine.edu;
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R. Bradford Allen
(), brad.allen@maine.gov;
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Kelsey Sullivan
(), kelsey.m.sullivan@maine.gov;
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Erik Blomberg
(), contact IGS;
Dr. Erik Blomberg is an assistant professor in the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Conservation Biology at the University of Maine. He has spent nearly 15 years conducting research on grouse ecology throughout the United States, including work on greater sage-grouse, Columbian sharp-tailed grouse, ruffed grouse, and spruce grouse. More broadly, research in his lab is focused on wildlife population ecology, life history theory, habitat relationships, connections among these subject areas, and their collective relevance to species' conservation. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in wildlife population dynamics, demographic estimation, and ecology and management of game birds.
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