Wetland Use and Selection by Breeding Waterbirds in the Boreal Forest of Quebec, Canada

Abstract

Wetlands of remote forested landscapes of Quebec support numerous species of breeding waterbirds yet species-habitat associations remain poorly quantified. From 1990 to 2005, we conducted systematic helicopter surveys of breeding waterfowl and common loons (Gavia immer) across a 540,000-km 2 forested region of Quebec. Data from this survey were used to investigate local habitat use and selection by waterbirds, based on a wetland classification system derived from digital forestry maps. Detailed indicated-breeding-pair (IBP) distributions were developed for broad aquatic, wetland, and shoreline habitat types. We also estimated selection ratios within groups of similar habitat types. Small (≤8 ha), connected ponds were highly used and selected by five dabbling duck species and by wood duck (Aix sponsa), Canada goose (Branta canadensis), ring-necked duck (Aythya collaris), hooded merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus), common goldeneye (Bucephala clangula), and Barrow's goldeneye (B. islandica). Dabbling duck species, wood duck, and Canada goose made extensive use of streams (25-41% of all IBP). Community organization was mainly driven by openness of aquatic habitat and water movement, i.e., from lentic to lotic habitats. Failure to include streams in waterfowl surveys and habitat mapping could produce biased estimates of wetland habitat use and selection in the boreal forest.

Occupancy Patterns of Breeding American Black Ducks

“…Alternatively, conditions that make a wetland suitable for breeding black ducks are likely to vary more within a size class than between size classes. For example, topographic ruggedness (mountainous terrain or large changes in elevation in short distances) helps predict black duck distribution across much of their range (Barker et al ), and vegetation conditions within a wetland have large impacts on selection of breeding areas for black ducks (Lemelin et al ).…”

“…We calculated summary statistics for observed (raw data uncorrected for detection) occupancy at each of the 5 wetland size classes identified above, and modeled occupancy in all wetland sizes combined. Most (60%) wetlands in our database were small, <2.5 ha, and small wetlands are often the preferred breeding areas of many dabbling duck species (Kantrud and Stewart 1977), including black ducks , Stevens et al 2003, Lemelin et al 2010. Accordingly, we also modeled occupancy of only the smallest size class of wetlands.…”

Nest and brood survival of Ring-necked Ducks in relation to anthropogenic development and wetland attributes

“…Such changes might also be influenced by nest and nest-site characteristics that influence predator encounter rates (Gerell 1970, Barding andNelson 2008). I predicted wetland features would influence nest survival and predation risk because wetland features have been shown to be important indicators of Ringnecked Duck use (DesGranges and Darveau 1985, Rempel et al 1997, Lemelin et al 2010. I predicted that anthropogenic development would affect nest survival through impacts on wetland quality (Siegel 2007, Kroening andFerrey 2013), the addition of pollutants and heavy metals (Morgan et al 1983, Trombulak andFrissell 2000), changes to surface and subsurface water routing, impacts on macroinvertebrate availability (McGurk and Fong 1995), disturbance associated with human activity (Trombulak andFrissell 2000, Benítez-López et al 2010), and changes in predator mortality or avoidance behavior (Trombulak and Frissell 2000, Jaeger et al 2005, Randa and Yunger 2006; Table 1).…”

“…Studies of wetland use by waterfowl communities in Canada include Ring-necked Ducks (Townsend 1966, Toft et al 1982, DesGranges and Darveau 1985, Rempel et al 1997, Paszkowski and Tonn 2000, Lemelin et al 2010), but estimates of breeding season vital rates for Ring-necked Ducks are few. Koons and Rotella (2003) examined nest success in the Parklands of Manitoba, but the landscape had a minimal forest component.…”

A gap analysis of tree species representation in the protected areas of the Canadian boreal forest: applying a new assemblage of digital Forest Resource Inventory data

“…FRI data have proved useful in many ecological applications. FRI-based covariates are widely used in models of species distributions (Vernier et al 2002(Vernier et al , 2008Lemelin et al 2010;Rettie et al 1997;Beguin et al 2013), as well as of wildfire size (Cumming 2001) and occurrence (Krawchuk et al 2006). However, difficulties exist in using FRI data over large spatial extents.…”