Abstract
An animal's reproduction and survival depend critically on the choices it makes when selecting a habitat for breeding. Therefore, we expect animals to select breeding habitats that confer fitness benefits. For mallards (Anas platyrhynchos), previous research has shown that populations are most sensitive to variation in nest survival rates; thus, we expect strong selection for safe nest sites. We used patterns of nesting success to predict nest distributions. We compared distributions of nests from radio-marked mallard females (n = 1,710) to random locations using logistic regression and modeled how nest-site locations were related to a number of landscape metrics measured at several spatial scales. Consistent with predictions derived from patterns of nesting success, mallard nest sites were best modeled using habitat attributes measured at the scale of the vegetation patch containing the nest, though ultimately habitat features measured at multiple scales improved predictions. Similarly, for most habitat ...
Published Version
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