Habitat Quality and Reproductive Effort of Common Goldeneyes Nesting Near Sudbury, Canada

Abstract

To determine whether common goldeneyes (Bucephala clangula) responded to habitat alteration caused by acid rain, we examined how female goldeneyes allocated reproductive effort in relation to the quality of their nesting lake in an acid-stressed region near Sudbury, Ontario, during 1988-90. Goldeneyes are primarily insectivorous, and we predicted that higher quality females (i.e., heavier or with previous breeding experience) or females nesting on lakes with abundant aquatic invertebrates (i.e., without fish and often acidic in our study area) would allocate more resources to their clutch