Species richness and density of wintering ducks on wetlands reserve program easements in Mississippi

Abstract

The Mississippi Alluvial Valley provides important habitats for migrating and wintering waterfowl and is a priority area for restoration of wetlands through the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP). Management of WRP wetlands varies from no management to active annual management of vegetation and water levels, which may influence wintering waterfowl use. We modeled variation in species richness and density of dabbling and diving ducks (Anatini, Aythyini) relative to a published Vegetative Forage Quality Models including VFQI explain 27% of the variation in duck densities, suggesting that ducks may also be selecting wetlands based on metrics that are not related to VFQI or wetland management. Active managed wetlands may produce the greatest VFQI, but our results suggest this technique need not always result in increased use by ducks. Nevertheless, we recommend active management of WRP wetlands to sustain food at the landscape level for migrating and wintering ducks. We also recommend continued study of metrics other than VFQI that may potentially influence use of wetlands by waterfowl. Ó 2015 The Wildlife Society.

Waterbird communities and seed biomass in managed and reference‐restored wetlands in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley

“…Our combined study generated consistent results across a large region affording valuable information regarding the importance of habitat management for waterbird communities on restored privately owned wetlands and supports previous studies (Haukos & Smith ; Anderson & Smith ; Kaminski et al ; Fleming et al ). Our results suggest landscape‐scale wetland restoration programs that include active management, such as MBHI, have capacity to increase waterbird use of and food availability in restored habitats, but long‐term monitoring at regional scales is needed to evaluate this claim (King et al ).…”

“…We surveyed wetlands between sunrise and sunset at varying randomly selected diurnal time intervals (sunrise to 0800 hours, 0800–1200 hours, 1200–1600 hours, and 1600 hours‐sunset) to alleviate possible temporal bias of observed bird use (Davis & Smith ;Webb et al ; Fleming et al ). We also followed protocols for the Integrated Waterbird Management and Monitoring Program [IWMM] () for whole area wetland bird surveys.…”

“…Following restoration of WRP wetlands, which usually involves installation of hydrological infrastructure, landowners are not obligated to manage the wetland, despite substantial evidence that management can increase waterbird use and food availability (Kaminski et al ; Kross et al ; Evans‐Peters et al ; Olmstead et al ; Fleming et al ; Tapp & Webb ). Following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in spring 2010, NRCS implemented the Migratory Bird Habitat Initiative (MBHI) in summer 2010 to mitigate potential impacts of oil‐impaired Gulf coastal wetlands on resident and migrant fauna (Natural Resources Conservation Service ; Davis et al ).…”

“…Although wetlands restored through WRP are essential to meeting regional wetland and wildlife habitat conservation goals (King & Keeland ; King et al ), efforts to evaluate management on restored WRP easements have been limited (cf., Kaminski et al ; Evans‐Peters et al ; Fleming et al , ; Olmstead et al ). Evaluating effects of management on food abundance and waterbird use of restored wetlands is important for understanding how these habitats contribute to meeting avian and habitat objectives of conservation initiatives, such as the North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP; King et al ; North American Waterfowl Management Plan ).…”

A comparison of wetland characteristics between Agricultural Conservation Easement Program and public lands wetlands in West Virginia, USA

“…Previous research evaluating specific wetland characteristics in West Virginia compared naturally occurring wetlands with wetlands created through mitigation or occurred on only a small subsample of ACEP sites (Balcombe, Anderson, Fortney, & Kordek, , ; Balcombe et al, ; Clipp, Peters, & Anderson, ; Strain, Turk, & Anderson, ). Additionally, past wetland research compared actively and passively managed wetlands (Anderson & Smith, , ; Fleming et al, ; Kaminski, Baldassarre, & Pearse, ; O'Neal, Heske, & Strafford, ). To our knowledge, a comparison of wetland features on passively managed conservation easements relative to reference wetlands has not been completed.…”