Habitat Features Associated With Barrow's Goldeneye Breeding In Eastern Canada

Abstract

Abstract We investigated environmental variables linked to presence of Barrow's Goldeneye (Bucephala islandica) pairs from the eastern North American population on 412 lakes of the Sainte-Marguerite River watershed, Quebec, Canada. We analysed habitat relationships at two spatial scales (i.e., considering all lakes surveyed and high elevation lakes only) and predetermined the high elevation lakes as those including 90% of Barrow's Goldeneye occurrences. Barrow's Goldeneye were found on 59 lakes, all of which were ≥490 m elevation (maximum = 822 m) with 90% at ≥610 m. Six variables tested using multivariate logistic regressions contributed to explain the occurrence of goldeneyes. Four were significant (P < 0.10) in both the complete and the high elevation data sets: nest boxes (+) and brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) (−) occurrences, altitude (+), and the interaction between altitude and mean slope (+). The models explained only a small proportion of Barrow's Goldeneye occurrence for both data sets (R2 ...