Patch-burn Grazing Moderates Eastern Meadowlark Nest Survival in Midwestern Grasslands

Abstract

Abstract The spatiotemporal interaction between fire and grazing was a key process in the development of North America's grasslands. Restoring interacting fire and grazing may be instrumental in conserving rangeland biodiversity, but a need exists to understand how it affects organisms in highly fragmented grassland landscapes. We examined nest survival of a species of conservation concern, the Eastern Meadowlark (Sturnella magna), in fragmented Midwestern grasslands that varied in the spatial and temporal application of fire and grazing. The patch-burn grazed treatment (i.e., interacting fire and grazing) consisted of burning a different third of a pasture annually. Pastures in the grazed-and-burned treatment were burned in their entirety every third year and both treatments were moderately stocked with cattle. Average daily nest survival rates were similar across treatments (patch-burn grazed: incubation = 0.90 and nestling = 0.93, grazed-and-burned: incubation = 0.90 and nestling = 0.92), but patch-bur...