Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.

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  White-tailed deer habitats in the central Black Hills

  DePerno, C. S.; Jenks, J. A.; Griffin, S. L.; Rice, L. A.; Higgins, K. F. (Society for Range Management, 2002-05-01)

  White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus dacotensis Zimm.) numbers in the central Black Hills have declined since the middle 1970s. Population status has been documented by a decline in hunter success, deer reproductive success, and fawn survival. Most management agencies believe habitat deterioration is the primary cause of population decline in the Black Hills. We evaluated habitat selection for a white-tailed deer herd in the central Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming. From July 1993-July 1996, 73 adult and yearling doe and 12 adult and yearling buck white-tailed deer were radiocollared and visually monitored. Habitat Information was collected at 4,662 white-tailed deer locations and 1,087 random locations. During winter, white-tailed deer selected ponderosa pine- (Pinus ponderosa P. C. Lawson) deciduous and burned pine cover types. Overstory-understory habitats selected included pine/grass-forb, pine/bear-berry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi (L.) Spreng.), pine/snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus L.), burned pine/grass-forb, and pine/shrub habitats. Structural stages selected included sapling-pole pine stands with 70% canopy cover, burned pine sapling-pole and saw-timber stands with 40% canopy cover. During summer, white-tailed deer selected pine-deciduous, aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.), aspen-coniferous, spruce (Picea glauca (Moench) Voss), and spruce-deciduous cover types. Overstory-understory habitats selected included pine/juniper Juniperus communis L.), aspen/shrubs, spruce/juniper, and spruce/shrub habitats. Structural stages selected included pine, aspen, and spruce sapling pole stands with all levels (0-40%, 41-70%,71-100%) of canopy cover. Results supported low habitat quality as a factor involved with the decline of the deer population. We recommend that habitat management techniques, such as aspen regeneration and prescribed burns, be used to Improve the habitat base in the central Black Hills.
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  Influence of local and landscape factors on distributional dynamics: a species-centred, fitness-based approach

  Flesch, Aaron D.; Univ Arizona, Sch Nat Resources & Environm, Desert Lab (ROYAL SOC, 2017-07-05)

  In spatially structured populations, distributional dynamics are driven by the quantity, connectivity and quality of habitat. Because these drivers are rarely measured directly and simultaneously at relevant scales, information on their relative importance remains unclear. I assessed the influence of both direct and indirect measures of local habitat quality, and of landscape habitat amount and connectivity on long-term territory occupancy dynamics of non-migratory pygmy owls. Direct measures of local habitat quality based on territory-specific reproductive output had greater effects on distribution than landscape factors, but only when spatio-temporal fluxes in performance linked to environmental stochasticity and intraspecific competition were considered. When habitat quality was measured indirectly based on habitat structure, however, landscape factors had greater effects. Although all landscape factors were important, measures of landscape connectivity that were uncorrelated with habitat amount and based on attributes of matrix structure and habitat configuration that influence dispersal movements had greater effects than habitat effective area (amount weighted by quality). Moreover, the influence of connectivity (but not habitat effective area) depended on local habitat quality. Such results suggest the relative importance of local habitat quality in driving distribution has been underestimated and that conservation strategies should vary spatially depending on both local and landscape contexts.
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  Characteristics of nest sites of northern bobwhites in western Oklahoma

  Townsend, D. E. II.; Masters, R. E.; Lochmiller, R. L.; Leslie, D. M.; DeMaso, S. J.; Peoples, A. D. (Society for Range Management, 2001-05-01)

  Previous authors have described nesting habitat of the northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) throughout its range, but few have compared structural or compositional differences of vegetation between nest sites and random non-use sites, and successful and non-successful nests. From 1996-1998, we compared cover and structure of 85 plant species from 80 nest sites of northern bobwhite in western Oklahoma. Nest sites were consistently associated with greater structural complexity than what was available at random. Bobwhites selected nest sites with a greater coverage of grass (ca. 50%) and woody (ca. 20-30%) vegetation with a relatively low percentage of bare ground, presumably because these attributes maximize their chance for successful reproduction by providing protection against weather and predators. Successful nests were more concealed during 1996 and 1997 (12.37 and 10.74% visibility, respectively) than non-successful nest sites (21.6 and 27.65% visibility), but levels of concealment did not differ during 1998. We found no significant differences in vegetation composition or structure between successful and non-successful nest sites.