Landscape and regional context differentially affect nest parasitism and nest predation for Wood Thrush in central Virginia, USA

Abstract

ABSTRACT Many empirical studies have shown that forest-breeding songbirds, and Neotropical migrants in particular, suffer greater rates of nest predation and nest parasitism in smaller forest patches and in fragmented landscapes. To compare the performance of different metrics of spatial habitat configuration resulting from deforestation, we studied nest predation and nest parasitism rates at 200 Wood Thrush (Hylocichla mustelina) nests in eight forest fragments ranging from 82 to 9,171 ha in central Virginia, USA. We analyzed nest parasitism rates using logistic regression and we analyzed daily nest predation rates under a multistate competing risks design. For both analyses we compared the performance of 16 covariates, 11 of which related to the spatial configuration of habitat (e.g., patch size, distance to edge, percent core forest in proximity to nest) and 5 of which were unrelated to habitat (e.g., year, serial date, nest height). Distance to agriculture gained the greatest support in analyses of ne...