Vegetation characteristics influence fine-scale intensity of habitat use by wild turkey and white-tailed deer in a loblolly pine plantation

Chance, Donald P.; McCollum, Johannah R.; Street, Garrett M.; Strickland, Bronson K.; Lashley, Marcus A.

doi:10.1016/j.baae.2019.10.007

Cited by 7 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…For example, Cohen et al (2019) demonstrated that eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo, Linnaeus 1758) were unlikely to use the interior of burn blocks when greater than 250 m from an unburned edge, and Sullivan et al (2020) found that turkey use was highest in smaller burn blocks (23 ha). Even so, this species is capable of traveling much longer distances, and fire consistently produces desirable plant community structure for that species (Chance et al 2019).…”

Section: Dispersion Of Wildlife Habitatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial scale in prescribed fire regimes: an understudied aspect in conservation with examples from the southeastern United States

Mason

Lashley

2021

fire ecol

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The idea that not all fire regimes are created equal is a central theme in fire research and conservation. Fire frequency (i.e., temporal scale) is likely the most studied fire regime attribute as it relates to conservation of fire-adapted ecosystems. Generally, research converges on fire frequency as the primary filter in plant community assembly and structure, which is often critical to conservation goals. Thus, conservation success is commonly linked to fire frequency in fire regimes.The spatial scale of fire may also be vital to conservation outcomes, but this attribute is underrepresented in the primary literature. In our global, contemporary literature search, we found 37 published syntheses concerning the effects of prescribed fire in conservation over the last decade. In those syntheses, only 16% included studies that reported data-based inferences related to the spatial scale of the fire, whereas 73% included discussion of empirical studies on the temporal scale. Only one of the syntheses discussed studies that explicitly tested the effects of spatial extent, and none of those studies were experiments manipulating spatial scale. Further, understanding spatial-scale-dependent patterns may be relevant because two databases of fire-occurrence data from the United States indicated that spatial scale among lightning-ignited and prescribed fires may have been mismatched over the past few decades.Based on a rich ecological literature base that demonstrates pervasive scale-dependent effects in ecology, spatial-scale-dependent relationships among prescribed fire regimes and conservation outcomes are likely. Using examples from the southeastern United States, we explored the potential for scale-dependent ecological effects of fire. In particular, we highlighted the potential for spatial scale to (a) influence wildlife populations by manipulating the dispersion of habitat components, and (b) modulate plant community assembly and structure by affecting seed dispersal mechanics and spatial patterns in herbivory. Because spatial-scale-dependent outcomes are understudied but likely occurring, we encourage researchers to address the ecological effects of spatial scale in prescribed-fire regimes using comparative and manipulative approaches.

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Section: Dispersion Of Wildlife Habitatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial scale in prescribed fire regimes: an understudied aspect in conservation with examples from the southeastern United States

Mason

Lashley

2021

fire ecol

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“…Although woody cover in the understory was only around 10%, Nelson et al (2022) reported that brooding females avoided areas with >10% woody cover in the understory. Collectively, frequent disturbance (i.e., prescribed fire) may play an important role in making pine‐dominated stands brood habitat (Yeldell et al 2017 b , Wood et al 2018, Chamberlain et al 2020), as habitat quality is strongly related to understory vegetative cover (Chance et al 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Age‐based shifts in habitat selection of wild turkey broods

Nelson,

Keever,

Wightman

et al. 2023

J Wildl Manag

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Animals exhibit pronounced age‐based shifts in habitat selection, often because of increasing body size. Body size affects how animals access resources, traverse landscapes, and perceive predation risk. While adults may be habitat generalists, offspring may be constrained by diet, predation avoidance methods, and mobility given smaller body size, and thus be more specialized. Observed declines in eastern wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) productivity and recruitment across the southeastern United States has necessitated evaluations of availability and composition of brood habitat. As poults are smaller and have more specialized resource requirements than adults, selection of vegetation likely changes as poults age. We evaluated aged‐based shifts in selection relative to vegetation communities, normalized difference vegetation indices (NDVI), and distances to trails by eastern wild turkey brooding females in a pine (Pinus spp.)‐dominated landscape in Georgia, USA, from April–July during 2017–2020. We used step‐selection functions and conditional logistic regression to evaluate resource selection of 36 brooding females. Of 175 nests monitored, 36 (20.6%) successfully hatched a brood and only 12 broods had at least 1 poult survive ≥28 days post‐hatch (i.e., 6.9% of nests produced a poult that was recruited into the population). Overall, brooding females selected for pastures (β = 0.730; 95% CI = 0.5144–0.9452), hardwoods (β = 0.324; 95% CI = 0.1608–0.4865), areas closer to trails (β = −0.002; 95% CI = −0.0023–−0.0014), and areas with greater NDVI values (β = 2.714; 95% CI = 1.7897–3.6380). Habitat selection shifted as broods aged, suggesting resource needs shift to scale allometrically with body size as broods get older. For example, selection strength waned as broods aged and broods were 2.47 times less likely to select pastures on day 28 relative to day 1 post‐hatch. Pastures were selected for after broods hatched, whereas selection for young pines increased as poults aged. Despite pine‐dominated cover types comprising nearly a third of the usable landscape, young pine communities were avoided by females with recently hatched broods. Managers may create better brood habitat by promoting early successional vegetation communities amidst a diversity of other land cover types to account for changing resource needs and predator avoidance capabilities as poults age.

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