Estimating natal dispersal movement rates of female European ducks with multistate modelling

Abstract

Summary 1.We used up to 34 years of capture-recapture data from about 22 100 new releases of day-old female ducklings and multistate modelling to test predictions about the influence of environmental, habitat and management factors on natal dispersal probability of three species of ducks within the Engure Marsh, Latvia. 2. The mean natal dispersal distances were very similar ( c . 0·6-0·7 km) for all three species and were on average 2·7 times greater than breeding dispersal distances recorded within the same study system. 3. We were unable to confirm the kinship hypothesis and found no evidence that young first-nesting females nested closer to their relatives (either mother or sister) than to the natal nest. 4. Young female northern shovelers, like adults, moved from small islands to the large island when water level was high and vice versa when water level was low before the construction of elevated small islands. Movement probabilities between the two strata were much higher for young shovelers than adults, suggesting that young birds had not yet developed strong fidelity to the natal site. Movements of young female tufted ducks, unlike those of shovelers, were not dependent on water level fluctuations and reflected substantial flexibility in choice of first nesting sites. 5. Data for young birds supported our earlier conclusion that common pochard nesting habitats in black-headed gull colonies were saturated during the entire study period. Young females, like the two adult age groups, moved into and out of colonies with similar probability. Fidelity probability of female pochards to each stratum increased with age, being the lowest (0·62) for young ( DK ) females, intermediate (0·78) for yearlings ( SY ) and the highest (0·84) for adult ( ASY ) females. 6. Young female tufted ducks, like adults, showed higher probabilities of moving from islands to emergent marshes when water levels were higher both before and after habitat management. The relationship between the spring water levels and movement was much weaker for young females than for adults. 7. Young female diving ducks exhibited much stronger (compared to adults) asymmetric movement with respect to proximity to water, with higher movement probabilities to near-water locations than away from these locations. 8. Local survival of day-old ducklings during the first year of life was time-specific and very low (means for different strata/states 0·01-0·08) because of high rates of emigration and prefledging mortality.

Response of young and adult birds to the same environmental variables and different spatial scales during post breeding period

“…Both water cover and river density positively correlated with their abundance. Blums et al (2003) and Skorka et al (2009) demonstrated that rivers and water bodies play important role in landscape scale movements of waterbirds and their use of foraging patches. It is noteworthy that rivers also increase abundance in breeding habitat patches, as shown by Lenda et al (2010).…”

Research progress in avian dispersal behavior

“…Moreover, closely-related bird species may show some similarity in dispersal patterns (Delestrade et al, 1996;Negro et al, 1997). Presently, studies have been focused on the factors shaping the bird species to disperse (Stenseth and Lidicker, 1993), including sexbiased (Blums et al, 2003), age-dependent (Pyle, 2001), density-dependent (Cam et al, 2004), body condition (Garant et al, 2005), social status (Baglione et al, 2003), habitat and landscape (Breininger, 1999), food (Coles et al, 2003), parasite (Brown and Brown, 1992) and climate change (Walls et al, 2005).…”

Using animal movement paths to measure response to spatial scale

“…Animals perceive and react to this structure at many different spatial scales, and each aspect of their biology (e.g. foraging behaviour (Fritz et al 2003), dispersal patterns (Blums et al 2003), animal orientation (Benhamou 1989), and population dynamics (Lewis and Murray 1993) relates to specific sections of this scale. Wiens (1989) called such sections ''domains'' and called the boundaries between them ''transitions''.…”