Effects of prescribed fire on prenesting movements of wild turkeys in Arkansas

Abstract

AbstractThe restoration of historic disturbance regimes is an increasingly common management strategy to conserve disturbance‐dependent communities and species, and enhance resilience of ecosystems to climate change or plant and animal invasions. However, the reintroduction of frequent and wide‐scale disturbance may have unexpected consequences on species that are accustomed to an environment absent of frequent disturbance. Implementation of frequent prescribed fire for community restoration has coincided with population declines of eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) in the Ozark Highlands of Arkansas. We investigated whether there was evidence of linkage between wild turkey movement behavior and habitat use and the widespread use of prescribed fire that began in 2002 and continued through the end of our study in 2013. We fitted 67 female wild turkeys with satellite transmitters in 2012 and 2013 on the White Rock Ecosystem Restoration Area to estimate annual and seasonal home ranges and examine pre‐nesting habitat use at multiple spatial scales. Home range was larger for adults in 2013 (4,750 ha, SE = 946.2, n = 12) than in 2012 (2,703 ha, SE = 283.4, n = 19). Mean pre‐nesting ranges for adults were 1,633 ha (SE = 238.9, n = 23) in 2012 and 1,118 ha (SE = 158.8, n = 18) in 2013, smaller than those of sub‐adults, 1,761 ha (SE = 581.2, n = 3) in 2012 and 5,576 ha (SE = 2260, n = 8) in 2013. Habitat selection analyses for the pre‐nesting period indicated that wild turkeys used locations with more variability in canopy cover and vegetation height and in smaller patch sizes than expected based on availability. However, female wild turkeys selected nesting cover that had more variability in canopy cover and vegetation height but in larger patches. Differences in sub‐adults and adult home and seasonal ranges suggest that other factors such as density dependence or social hierarchy could be driving movements as opposed to prescribed fire application. Wild turkey females selected variable vegetation structure during the pre‐nesting and nesting periods with characteristics that could be a result of frequent prescribed fire or forest succession. However, we documented no direct evidence these characteristics or other aspects of the prescribed fire program were causing wild turkey population declines.