Sex‐specific differences and long‐term trends in habitat selection of American woodcock

Abstract

Effective wildlife management requires an understanding of how individuals select environmental factors, although few studies assess how habitat selection may differ over time or between sexes. During the post‐breeding period (15 May to 1 Sep), we tracked 146 male American woodcock (Scolopax minor) in Rhode Island, USA, from 2010–2021 to assess how habitat selection varied over time, and 17 females and 51 males during the final 2 years of the study to document sex‐specific differences in habitat selection. Males generally had smaller home ranges (35.0 ± 10.7 [margin of error] ha) and preferred habitat mosaics that consisted of forested wetlands, young forest patches, areas of deciduous forest, moist soils with gentle slopes, and riparian corridors. We detected subtle differences between sexes in selection for wetland young forest, upland young forest, percent slope, distance to upland young forest, distance to streams, and distance to moist soils. During 2020–2022, females tended to have larger home ranges (78.7 ± 46.4 ha) than males (35.0 ± 10.7 ha) and more strongly selected sites closer to riparian corridors, while males selected areas that were closer to upland young forest with flatter slopes than the available surrounding landscape. Such sex‐specific differences in habitat selection may be related to males and females prospecting for potential breeding sites during this post‐breeding period for the following spring. We used the top‐ranked habitat selection models for males and females to produce a spatially explicit state‐wide map that identifies low‐to‐high likelihood of use areas that can be used to guide forest management decisions in southern New England to maximize benefits for American woodcock.