Occurrence of declining bird species on privately owned longleaf pine restoration sites

Abstract

Longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) forests have become a major focus of large-scale restoration efforts across the southeastern United States over the past two decades, but the success of these efforts are not often measured. One example is Partners for Fish and Wildlife (PFW), which is administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and designed to assist private landowners with longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) planting. An objective of this program is to provide habitat for species like the Bachman’s Sparrow (Peucaea aestivalis), which is reliant on fire-maintained longleaf pine savannas. To assess this program’s success, we conducted avian point counts and vegetation surveys in longleaf pine stands enrolled in the Mississippi PFW program during 2018–2019. We surveyed 51 stands (≥16 ha; ≤16 years old) and conducted 194 point count surveys. Across all stands, coverage of woody vegetation averaged 38% (SD = 20%), herbaceous cover 39% (23%), and canopy closure 68% (25%). We detected 6 Bachman’s Sparrows in 3 stands at 4 points (5.8% of stands, 2.1% of points), indicating the stands are providing inappropriate conditions for this species due to inadequate prescribed burning. We detected Prairie Warblers (Setophaga discolor) in 37 stands (72%) and at 94 points (48%), and Northern Bobwhites (Colinus virginianus) in 43 stands (83%) and at 101 points (52%), indicating PFW stands are providing habitat for declining shrubland species. If providing habitat for grassland birds like Bachman’s Sparrow continues to be an objective for PFW stands in the Southeast, we recommend stricter requirements for landowner enrollment in the program (e.g., agreements to maintain a burn interval of ∼2 years), and more assistance in meeting those requirements. More broadly, maintenance of appropriate disturbance regimes will be critical to restoration of disturbance-dependent forests and may require longer-term investment than is customary.