Spatially‐explicit land use effects on nesting of Atlantic Flyway resident Canada geese in New Jersey

Abstract

Atlantic Flyway resident population (AFRP) Canada geese Branta canadensis in New Jersey, USA, have grown dramatically during the last thirty years and are considered as overabundant in many areas. Development of corporate parks and urban areas with manicured lawns and artificial ponds offer ideal nesting habitat for AFRP geese, with limited pressure from hunting or natural predators. As a result, spatial heterogeneity in reproduction must be taken into account in managing the population. We identified the site and landscape spatial scale extents at which land use features influenced nest site selection and nest success. Nest searches were conducted throughout the State during 2009-2010, and 309 nests were monitored through hatch to determine their fates. We ran a spatial correlation analysis of land use composition to identify spatial scale extents at which geese most considerably respond to their environment for nest site selection and nest success. All significant spatial scale extents were at or below 2.25 km for the five classified land use types. We emphasize that habitat-goose associations in densely urban areas were strongest at extents 1 km, while rural and natural areas were strongest at extents 1 km. Geese responded to human-dominated land uses at a smaller spatial scale extent than land uses with low human density. The strength of all nest-land use univariate relationships was low; however, our primary objective was to identify the scales extent at which geese associate with land use, rather than the intensity. We encourage managers to consider these scale-dependent associations in identifying important habitat variables in multivariate models; and if population control of AFRP Canada geese is of primary interest, then focusing on local habitat management will most likely have the largest influence in managing this population.

Factors influencing nest survival in resident Canada geese

“…Early growth was likely due to a combination of factors, including a lack of hunting pressure in urban areas (Smith et al 1999, Atlantic Flyway Council 2011 and a hunting season closure (1995)(1996)(1997)(1998) or other limits on regular hunting season regulations in response to a dramatic decrease in Canada goose in the AFRP during the 1990s (Hindman et al 2004). Population growth of resident Canada goose slowed during the early 2000s, and abundance has since seen a considerable decrease from roughly 104,000 to 77,000 birds during 2006-2014(Nichols and Jones 2015. Heterogeneity in the spatial distribution of population control actions paired with changing land use across the state has provided a complex narrative of habitat-animal relationships over this time.…”

“…Less urbanized land uses (e.g., agricultural and natural lands) were most closely related to the success of a nest at a larger scale of 2.25 km. Our paper expands upon previous work of Guerena et al (2014) by evaluating the influence of land use and weather factors on nest survival, clutch size, and hatchability across 3 decades.…”

“…We used a buffer area of 250 m 2 to calculate land-use characteristics at the site scale of the nest site (Messmer 2010). Additionally, we examined landscape variables at scales supported in Guerena et al (2014), ranging from 0.50-2.25 km. We classified land-use types as urban residential (urban; 0.75-km radius buffer), rural residential (rural; 1.0 km), commercial and industrial (commercial; 0.5 km), agricultural (2.25 km), and natural (forest, shrub, and wetlands; 2.25 km) using the New Jersey Land Use Land Cover (LULC) digital imagery from 1986(New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection 1998, 2000.…”

Characterization and Justification of Trees on an Inner-City Golf Course in Halifax, Canada: An Investigation into the Ecological Integrity of Institutional Greenspace

“…Conversely, non-golfers expressed the exact opposite opinion, with 64% responding negatively due to perceived destruction of habitat [5]. Since that study's publication, however, extensive research has demonstrated the ecological benefits of golf courses, especially in urban settings [16,17,25,26,[28][29][30].…”

Multi-scale Studies and the Ecological Neighborhood

“…Besides generalized linear models [20,[43][44][45], several other analytical approaches have been used recently for 'multiscale' analysis: principal coordinates of neighbor matrices [46], multi-scale pattern analysis [47], Spearman's rank correlation [48][49][50][51], multidimensional scaling [52], and classification tree analysis [53]. Analytical approaches from other disciplines have also been borrowed for the identification of relevant analytical foci, such as geostatistical variograms [54].…”