RESEARCH NOTES: ESTIMATING MOIST-SOIL SEEDS AVAILABLE TO WATERFOWL WITH DOUBLE SAMPLING FOR STRATIFICATION

Abstract

Moist-soil managers manipulate hydrology, soils, and vegetation to provide habitat and foods for waterfowl and other wildlife in seasonally flooded herbaceous wetlands. Increasing seed availability for waterfowl is a priority, but managers also provide resources such as invertebrates, tubers, and browse (Fredrickson and Taylor 1982). An important principle in moist-soil management is maintaining a large component of early-successional plant species whose reproductive strategies include production of abundant seed (Cronk and Fennessy 2001). Low and Bellrose (1944) first referred to the annual species that colonize mudflats as moist-soil plants and documented their potential seed production. Fredrickson and Taylor (1982) developed guidelines for modern moistsoil management in the 1970s and use of moist-soil methods increased rapidly thereafter (Fredrickson 1996). In the Mississippi Alluvial Valley (MAV), state and federal wildlife agencies now manage >8,000 ha in 300 impoundments for moist-soil habitat (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2002). Several methods have been used to quantify seed availability in moist-soil habitats. Harvesting seeds from inflorescences has been the most common