Regional estimates of duck brood abundance could help conservation managers assess landscape productivity and thereby improve spatially explicit allocation of limited conservation funds in the Prairie Pothole Region. We assessed the utility of repeat-visit brood counts from 2012 to 2013 surveys in the Prairie Pothole Region (ND, SD, and MT, USA) and hierarchical N-mixture models for providing estimates of abundance at a 10.4-km 2 scale. Models provided reliable estimates of brood abundance and underscored the importance of small wetlands and landscape characteristics to some dabbling duck broods in the Prairie Pothole Region. Ó
The extraction of oil and natural gas from reserves in the Bakken Formation has increased from 2004 to 2017 in North Dakota and northeast Montana, USA. High development areas overlap substantially with wetlands and grasslands identified as high priority for waterfowl conservation in the Prairie Pothole Region. To test for anthropogenic disturbance on waterfowl brood abundance, we conducted repeat‐visit waterfowl brood surveys during 2014–2017. We tested hypotheses about disturbance and brood abundance using hierarchical zero‐inflated Poisson models and a spatially and temporally explicit disturbance index within 3 radii (0.32 km, 0.64 km, 1.51 km). Model selection supported detection and abundance parameters that were consistent with previous research and suggested that brood abundance was higher in landscapes with high densities of small, shallow wetlands. Our analysis also demonstrated a negative relationship between abundance and the disturbance index for the smallest spatial radius (0.32 km); however, the effect size was small and predictions suggested that <1% of the broods in the sample population were affected. Considering this relatively weak negative relationship and the continued role of wetlands as the primary factor influencing brood abundance, we recommended that managers continue to focus conservation efforts in landscapes with high densities of small, unprotected wetlands, even in the presence of oil and gas development. © 2019 The Authors. Journal of Wildlife Management Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of The Wildlife Society.
The wetlands and grasslands of the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) make it the most productive breeding habitat for North American ducks. The growth rate of mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) populations is sensitive to changes in survival of adult females during the breeding season. Much of the PPR is suitable for large‐scale wind‐energy development and collisions of breeding females with wind turbines may be a novel source of mortality in this area. We assessed the effects of wind energy on breeding female mallard and blue‐winged teal (A. discors) survival by monitoring 77 radio‐marked mallards and 88 blue‐winged teal during the 2009 and 2010 breeding seasons at the Tatanka Wind Farm (TWF) near Kulm, North Dakota. During the same period, we monitored 70 female mallards and 75 blue‐winged teal at an adjacent reference site without wind turbines (REF). We used an information‐theoretic approach to investigate relationships between female survival and site (TWF vs. REF), year (2009 vs. 2010), and date. Collision mortalities were rare. Only 1 radio‐marked female mallard and no blue‐winged teal collided with wind turbines. Most mortalities were caused by predators (78.3%; 36/46), irrespective of species and site. For mallards, the best‐approximating model indicated that breeding season survival was 1) lowest when a high proportion of radio‐marked females were incubating, and 2) dependent on year and site such that expected survival (trueSˆ) in 2009 was higher at TWF (trueSˆ = 0.90, 85% CI = 0.79–0.98) than at REF (trueSˆ = 0.83, 85% CI = 0.68–0.95), but expected survival in 2010 was lower at TWF (trueSˆ = 0.62, 85% CI = 0.46–0.79) than at REF (trueSˆ = 0.84, 85% CI = 0.72–0.94). For blue‐winged teal, the constant model was the best‐approximating model and indicated that expected female survival was 0.75 (85% CI = 0.69–0.82). The most competitive model for blue‐winged teal that included the effect of wind turbines indicated that expected survival at TWF (trueSˆ = 0.71, 85% CI = 0.62–0.79) was lower than survival at REF (trueSˆ = 0.81, 85% CI = 0.73–0.89). The limited number of collisions observed for female mallards and blue‐winged teal nesting at TWF suggests that wind turbines had no direct effect on female survival. Thus, conservation strategies that include protection of wetland and grassland habitat in wind‐developed landscapes will most likely not cause a direct reduction in survival of breeding females due to collisions with wind turbines. © 2013 The Wildlife Society.
Conservation partners are concerned that oil and gas development in the Prairie Pothole Region may reduce the abundance of breeding duck pairs using associated wetland habitat. We conducted wetland-based surveys for breeding pairs of 5 species of dabbling ducks in the Bakken oil field during 2015–2017 across a gradient of oil and gas development intensity to test the hypothesis that the abundance of breeding duck pairs on survey wetlands would decrease as the development of oil and gas resources increased. We included covariates traditionally used to predict breeding duck pairs (i.e. wetland size and class) and a spatiotemporal index of disturbance when developing zero-inflated Poisson models relating pair abundance to environmental predictors. Similar to past analyses, pair abundance was strongly associated with wetland size. Our results were mixed and suggested that the abundance of early and late nesting species was positively and negatively related, respectively, to an index of disturbance that was largely driven by oil and gas development. Regardless of the direction of the relationship, effect sizes were small and not considered biologically significant. Our findings indicate that in our study area, strategies to conserve wetland resources for breeding duck pairs should not deviate from previous prioritization metrics within the range of oil and gas development we observed. We believe that our findings may have implications to similar landscapes within the Bakken.
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