Female Wild Turkeys Research Articles

Spatial roost networks and resource selection of female wild turkeys.

Wildlife demography is influenced by behavioural decisions, with sleep being a crucial avian behaviour. Avian species use roost sites to minimize thermoregulation costs, predation risk and enhance foraging efficiency. Sleep locations are often reused, forming networks within the home range. Our study, focusing on female eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) during the reproductive season, used social network analysis to quantify both roost site selection and network structure. We identified roost networks which were composed of a small percentage of hub roost sites connecting satellite roosts. Hub roosts were characterized by greater values of betweenness (β = 0.62, s.e. = 0.02), closeness (β = 0.59, s.e. = 0.03) and eigenvalue centrality (β = 1.15, s.e. = 0.05), indicating their importance as connectors and proximity to the network's functional centre. The probability of a roost being a hub increased significantly with greater eigenvalue centrality. Female wild turkeys consistently chose roost sites at lower elevations and with greater topographical ruggedness. Hub roost probability was higher near secondary roads and further from water. Our research highlights well-organized roost site networks around hub roosts, emphasizing the importance of further investigations into how these networks influence conspecific interactions, reproduction and resource utilization in wild turkeys.

Sex‐specific resource use by wild turkeys in response to hunting activity

AbstractHunting causes direct mortality and potentially disrupts normal activities of game and non‐game species. As spatial (i.e., selection of hunting areas) and temporal (i.e., only diurnally present) patterns of hunters can become predictable, hunted species may respond accordingly. Risk becomes more dynamic and complex for species that are hunted concurrent with their breeding cycle, and growing literature has noted that wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo spp.) behaviors can be altered by hunting activity. We allocated global positioning system (GPS) units to 1,500 wild turkey hunters and affixed GPS transmitters to 175 wild turkeys during 2014–2018 on the Webb Wildlife Management Area Complex in South Carolina, USA. We evaluated whether wild turkeys shifted resource selection as a function of hunter resource selection during the progression of hunting seasons. Male wild turkeys avoided areas where stationary hunting bouts occurred during the early hunting season (and selected for these areas before hunting began), whereas females were more likely to select those areas avoided by males by the end of the hunting season. For every 15% increase in predicted probability of an area being hunted, male wild turkeys were 4.16 times less likely to select that area, whereas female wild turkeys were 1.08 times more likely to select that area relative to pre‐season periods when hunters were not on the landscape. Hunting activity induced immediate responses by male wild turkeys as they sought refuge away from hunted areas. Coupled with recent research suggesting hunters are more influential than natural predators in reducing the frequency of male vocalizations and eliciting fleeing and avoidance behavior, our results indicate hunting activity could affect distribution and courtship behaviors of male wild turkeys during their breeding season.

Prospecting during egg laying informs incubation recess movements of eastern wild turkeys

BackgroundCentral place foragers must acquire resources and return to a central location after foraging bouts. During the egg laying (hereafter laying) period, females are constrained to a nest location, thus they must familiarize themselves with resources available within their incubation ranges after nest site selection. Use of prospecting behaviors by individuals to obtain knowledge and identify profitable (e.g., resource rich) locations on the landscape can impact demographic outcomes. As such, prospecting has been used to evaluate nest site quality both before and during the reproductive period for a variety of species.MethodsUsing GPS data collected from female eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) across the southeastern United States, we evaluated if prospecting behaviors were occurring during laying and what landcover factors influenced prospecting. Specifically, we quantified areas prospected during the laying period using a cluster analysis and the return frequency (e.g., recess movements) to clustered laying patches (150-m diameter buffer around a clustered laying period location) during the incubation period.ResultsThe average proportion of recess movements to prospected locations was 56.9%. Nest fate was positively influenced (μ of posterior distribution with 95% credible 0.19, 0.06–0.37, probability of direction = 99.8%) by the number of patches (90-m diameter buffer around a clustered laying period location) a female visited during incubation recesses. Females selected for areas closer to the nest site, secondary roads, hardwood forest, mixed pine-hardwood forest, water, and shrub/scrub, whereas they avoided pine forest and open-treeless areas.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that having a diverse suite of clustered laying patches to support incubation recesses is impactful to nest fate. As such, local conditions within prospected locations during incubation may be key to successful reproductive output by wild turkeys. We suggest that prospecting could be important to other phenological periods. Furthermore, future research should evaluate how prospecting for brood-rearing locations may occur before or during the incubation period.

Habitat Selection of Female Rio Grande Wild Turkey Influenced by Vegetation and Anthropogenic Structures

The Rio Grande wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo intermedia) is a popular game species throughout the southcentral United States. It has experienced recent population declines in some areas of its distribution, though the cause is not clear. To better understand Rio Grande wild turkey (hereafter, turkey) ecology and inform management, we attached Global Positioning System transmitters to 34 females in 2016 and 2017. We evaluated habitat selection at both the second-order (landscape) and third-order (home range) scale for the breeding season and second-order selection for the nonbreeding season. Our resource selection function (RSF) models evaluated vegetation, management, and anthropogenic development including oil and gas infrastructure and roads. We found that turkey space use was strongly associated with tall woody cover at both the landscape and home range scale during breeding season and at the landscape scale during nonbreeding season. Additionally, turkey space use was negatively related to the density of oil/gas wells at both scales during the breeding season and at the landscape scale during the nonbreeding season. Turkeys also selected areas close to roads at the landscape scale but avoided high traffic roads within their home ranges during the breeding season. Turkey also chose areas that were >24 mo post fire and close to water sources during the breeding season at both scales. Although turkeys exhibited consistent habitat selection patterns throughout the year relative to trees and oil and gas, our results suggest that their habitat requirements in western Oklahoma are seasonally variable. Management for the Rio Grande subspecies of turkey should maintain tree cover that provides roosting and loafing cover, as well as consider the potential negative impacts of oil and gas infrastructure when locating future energy development.

Seasonal Resource Selection and Use of Hardwood Regeneration by Translocated Wild Turkeys in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley

Reforestation practices have intensified in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley (MAV) of the United States of America with the aid of Farm Bill programs during the past three decades. Increases in reforested land also enhance possibilities to restore once-abundant but currently sparse species, such as eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) in the MAV. However, it is unknown whether <20-year-old hardwood regeneration provides a suitable habitat for re-establishing wild turkey populations in the MAV. We translocated wild turkeys to two study sites in reforested areas of the MAV. We monitored 74 wild turkeys’ habitat use and resource selection using radio telemetry from February 2009 to June 2010. We developed land use and land cover maps for the resource selection analysis of translocated wild turkeys. We found that turkey habitat use varied by site, sex, season, land cover type, and distance to mature hardwoods. Habitat use by wild turkeys decreased as distance to mature hardwood forest increased. Female wild turkeys used more hardwood regeneration during nesting and post-nesting seasons than during pre-nesting seasons. Although wild turkeys did not use regenerating and mature hardwood forests to the same extent, management of these forests appears critical to restoring wild turkeys in the MAV.

Reproductive asynchrony within social groups of female eastern wild turkeys.

Coordination in timing of reproduction is driven by multiple ecological and sociobiological processes for a wide array of species. Eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) use a male dominance polygynous mating system, where males communicate with females via elaborate courtship displays and vocalizations at display sites. Most females prefer to mate with dominant males; therefore, asynchronous breeding and nesting may occur which can disproportionately influence individual fitness within breeding groups. For female wild turkeys, there are reproductive advantages associated with earlier nesting. As such, we evaluated reproductive asynchrony within and between groups of GPS-tagged female eastern wild turkeys based on timing of nest initiation. We examined 30 social groups with an average of seven females per group (range 2-15) during 2014-2019 in west central Louisiana. We found that the estimated number of days between first nest initiation across females within groups varied between 3 and 7 days across years, although we expected 1-2 days to occur between successive nesting attempts of females within groups based on observations of captive wild turkeys in the extant literature. The number of days between successive nest attempts across females within groups was lower for successful than failed attempts, and nests with an average of 2.8 days between initiation of another nest were more likely to hatch. Our findings suggest that asynchronous reproduction may influence reproductive success in female wild turkeys.

Factors influencing survival of female eastern wild turkeys in northeastern South Dakota

AbstractPopulation growth can be sensitive to changes in survival rates for many avian species. Understanding sources of mortality, and how to mitigate negative effects on survival, can give managers insight into factors contributing to population change. Harvest trends of eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) in northeastern South Dakota suggest a decline in abundance. We investigated factors influencing survival of wild turkeys to identify potential factors contributing to the decline. We monitored 122 female wild turkeys using VHF radio transmitters from February 2017 to April 2019. Annual survival was 0.52 (95% CI = 0.33–0.64) for juvenile and 0.49 (95% CI = 0.23–0.63) for adult females, respectively. Daily survival probability was significantly lower during the spring (log‐odds ratio [LOR] = −0.9; 95% CI = −1.5–−0.2) and while a juvenile female was incubating (LOR = −0.67; 95% CI = −1.23–−0.09) but not while an adult female was incubating (LOR = −0.35; 95% CI = −0.92–0.24). Mammalian predation was the leading cause of mortality, and female wild turkeys were most vulnerable to predation during the spring while engaging in nesting and rearing of young broods. Wild turkeys were at risk for additional sources of mortality while incubating nests that were not contributors to mortality during other periods of the year, as deaths caused by haying equipment—the second greatest cause of mortality—only occurred while a female was incubating. Reducing female mortality due to haying, by delaying cutting, installing flushing bars on haying equipment, or increasing availability of suitable nesting cover types to reduce the probability of nesting in hayfields, could improve female survival. Annual survival during our study was about 16–29% lower than survival estimates from northeastern South Dakota during the 1990s, suggesting that reduced female survival could be contributing to the apparent decline in wild turkey abundance.

Effects of prescribed fire on prenesting movements of wild turkeys in Arkansas

AbstractThe restoration of historic disturbance regimes is an increasingly common management strategy to conserve disturbance‐dependent communities and species, and enhance resilience of ecosystems to climate change or plant and animal invasions. However, the reintroduction of frequent and wide‐scale disturbance may have unexpected consequences on species that are accustomed to an environment absent of frequent disturbance. Implementation of frequent prescribed fire for community restoration has coincided with population declines of eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) in the Ozark Highlands of Arkansas. We investigated whether there was evidence of linkage between wild turkey movement behavior and habitat use and the widespread use of prescribed fire that began in 2002 and continued through the end of our study in 2013. We fitted 67 female wild turkeys with satellite transmitters in 2012 and 2013 on the White Rock Ecosystem Restoration Area to estimate annual and seasonal home ranges and examine pre‐nesting habitat use at multiple spatial scales. Home range was larger for adults in 2013 (4,750 ha, SE = 946.2, n = 12) than in 2012 (2,703 ha, SE = 283.4, n = 19). Mean pre‐nesting ranges for adults were 1,633 ha (SE = 238.9, n = 23) in 2012 and 1,118 ha (SE = 158.8, n = 18) in 2013, smaller than those of sub‐adults, 1,761 ha (SE = 581.2, n = 3) in 2012 and 5,576 ha (SE = 2260, n = 8) in 2013. Habitat selection analyses for the pre‐nesting period indicated that wild turkeys used locations with more variability in canopy cover and vegetation height and in smaller patch sizes than expected based on availability. However, female wild turkeys selected nesting cover that had more variability in canopy cover and vegetation height but in larger patches. Differences in sub‐adults and adult home and seasonal ranges suggest that other factors such as density dependence or social hierarchy could be driving movements as opposed to prescribed fire application. Wild turkey females selected variable vegetation structure during the pre‐nesting and nesting periods with characteristics that could be a result of frequent prescribed fire or forest succession. However, we documented no direct evidence these characteristics or other aspects of the prescribed fire program were causing wild turkey population declines.

Instances of intraspecific nest parasitism in eastern and Rio Grande wild turkeys

AbstractNest parasitism can play an important role in processes regulating population dynamics of both hosts and parasites. Inter‐ and intra‐specific nest parasitism are 2 alternative reproductive strategies observed to occur in about 1% of all bird species. Recently, low productivity in wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) populations has resulted in population declines across the southeastern United States. Reproductive output may be influenced by nest parasitism, but the extent of nest parasitism and how it may be related to productivity of wild turkey populations are poorly understood. Herein, we illustrate 6 unreported examples of intraspecific nest parasitism obtained using GPS telemetry data from female wild turkeys in Georgia and Louisiana during 2014−2018. Further, we report 3 occurrences of nest parasitism in Texas using photographic evidence. Our findings suggest that ≥6% of nests are potentially parasitized, and that multiple females may visit and parasitize a single nest. Given recent declines in reproductive output of wild turkeys throughout the southeastern United States, we encourage researchers to continue assessing potential for nest parasitism across wild turkey populations and how this potential may be influenced by predator abundance and activity.

Selection of landcover types by translocated female eastern wild turkeys in east Texas

AbstractRestoration of eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) is among the greatest conservation achievements in North America. However, restoration efforts in east Texas have had limited success, resulting in a fragmented distribution of turkeys across the landscape. Restoration success is largely dependent on the ability of translocated individuals to quickly select habitat patches on the landscape. Information on habitat selection of translocated wild turkeys is important to identify high quality release locations that should reduce the probability of translocation failure. Our objective was to describe selection of landcover types by translocated female wild turkeys in east Texas. During 2016–2017, we translocated 78 GPS‐tagged wild turkeys to Angelina National Forest in east Texas. We quantified third order selection for females during 3 temporal periods—the exploratory phase (days 1–20), the exploitation phase (days 21–80), and within the annual range. During the exploratory phase, females selected shrub‐scrub and open landcover types, as well as linear paths (roads, rights‐of‐way). During the exploitation phase, females selected shrub‐scrub, mixed, and open landcover types, but not linear paths. Overall, wild turkeys translocated into forested landscapes of east Texas selected for early successional and other open landcover types. Prior to translocation attempts in forest‐dominated landscapes, managers should consider ways to increase availability of open landcover types with herbaceous cover for nesting and brood rearing.

Fort Ancient wild turkey harvesting strategies in northern Kentucky

AbstractFox Farm (1300–1650 CE) is a 16.2 ha Native American farming village in Mason County, Kentucky. The wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) death assemblage documented for this site is suggestive of a harvesting strategy that differs from that of Fort Ancient villages occupied for shorter periods of time. Relative to those villages, the residents of Fox Farm killed twice as many male as female wild turkeys. By focusing on adult males, the residents of Fox Farm were able to maintain a sustainable wild turkey population in the vicinity of their village, which allowed them to live at this locality for more than 300 years.

Nest site fidelity and nesting success of female wild turkeys

AbstractNest site fidelity is a common behavioral trait among birds that can positively influence reproductive success when there is spatial heterogeneity and temporal predictability in nest site quality. Nest site fidelity in wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) has received little attention in the literature despite providing a potential link to nesting success. We used data from 32 female wild turkeys across 8 field sites ranging from South Carolina to Texas with 2 consecutive years of nest data to determine if females showed fidelity to nest sites, if distance between nest locations in consecutive years predicted nest success in the second year, and if females showed fidelity to specific areas within home ranges (patches) for nesting. Females tended to nest closer to previously successful nests (median distance = 920 m) than to unsuccessful nests (median distance = 1550 m) in the second year; however, we documented no evidence of fidelity to specific nest sites. There was widespread reuse of prelaying (89.5%) and laying (77.8%) ranges by females between years, indicating some evidence for patch fidelity. The lack of evidence for nest site fidelity may be a result of the temporally dynamic nature of turkey nesting cover and ubiquity of predation risk across the southeastern U.S, which ecological theory predicts would not provide the reproductive benefits of fidelity that hinge on predictability. Fidelity to patches within home ranges may represent an always‐stay approach, which is expected when the cost of dispersing to new breeding areas outweighs potential benefits and may allow females to draw on prior knowledge of areas within their home ranges. Although distance between nests was not a significant predictor of nest success, females that nested successfully in the first year had a probability of 0.63 of successfully nesting in the second year, whereas unsuccessful females had probability of success of 0.08 in the second year. The tracking of individual nesting success across years warrants further research, as our results imply that a disproportionate percentage of reproduction through time may be attributed to a subset of females that are consistently successful, which may have implications for our understanding of reproductive dynamics in low productivity populations.

Fine‐scale resource selection and behavioral tradeoffs of eastern wild turkey broods

AbstractResource heterogeneity across the landscape prompts animals to make behavioral tradeoffs to survive and reproduce. Behavioral thermoregulation can buffer organisms from thermal extremes but may conflict with other essential activities such as predator avoidance or foraging, and necessitate tradeoffs among resource requirements. We evaluated patterns of habitat selection relative to thermal conditions, forage availability, and concealment cover for female eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) with broods to assess potential tradeoffs among resource requirements. We quantified air temperature (°C), vegetation characteristics (e.g., visual obstruction), and arthropod biomass (g/m2) at locations used by broods across 5 study sites in the southeastern United States during May–July 2019–2020. We used conditional logistic regression to estimate brooding female resource selection at the second (home range) and third (within home range) orders. Specifically, we identified differences in selection between brooding and non‐brooding females (second order), and factors influencing selection of sites used by brooding females during the day (when loafing and foraging) and night (roosting; third order). Brooding females selected sites with cooler temperatures (β = −0.22; 95% CI = −0.338–−0.102) and greater ground cover vegetation (β = 0.02; 95% CI = 0.013–0.033) than non‐brooding females. Additionally, biomass of large prey (Orthoptera) was positively related to ambient temperature, suggesting that use of thermal refuge by brooding females may limit availability of large prey. Brooding females appeared to balance the tradeoff between thermal refuge and forage availability by altering habitat selection patterns within home ranges. Brooding females selected for herbaceous areas that provided greater biomass of large arthropods during the day, and avoided areas dominated by woody vegetation during both the day and night. We did not observe brooding females using locations where woody cover exceeded 27% of understory vegetation. Thermal refuge is an important component of brood habitat, but within thermally suitable areas brooding females can select sites with greater availability of large prey to meet energetic demands of broods. Evaluation of multiple spatial scales is key when assessing tradeoffs among resource needs and determining the potential of behavioral thermoregulation to buffer an organism's thermal environment and allow persistence in a warming climate.

Behavioral strategies during incubation influence nest and female survival of Wild Turkeys.

Females must balance physiological and behavioral demands of producing offspring with associated expenditures, such as resource acquisition and predator avoidance. Nest success is an important parameter underlying avian population dynamics. Galliforms are particularly susceptible to low nest success due to exposure of ground nests to multiple predator guilds, lengthy incubation periods, and substantive reliance on crypsis for survival. Hence, it is plausible that nesting individuals prioritize productivity and survival differently, resulting in a gradient of reproductive strategies. Fine‐scale movement patterns during incubation are not well documented in ground‐nesting birds, and the influence of reproductive movements on survival is largely unknown. Using GPS data collected from female wild turkeys (n = 278) across the southeastern United States, we evaluated the influence of incubation recess behaviors on trade‐offs between nest and female survival. We quantified daily recess behaviors including recess duration, recess frequency, total distance traveled, and incubation range size for each nest attempt as well as covariates for nest concealment, nest attempt, and nest age. Of 374 nests, 91 (24%) hatched and 39 (14%) females were depredated during incubation. Average nest survival during the incubation period was 0.19, whereas average female survival was 0.78. On average, females took 1.6 daily unique recesses (SD = 1.2), spent 2.1 hr off the nest each day (SD = 1.8), and traveled 357.6 m during recesses (SD = 396.6). Average nest concealment was 92.5 cm (SD = 47). We found that females who took longer recess bouts had higher individual survival, but had increased nest loss. Females who recessed more frequently had lower individual survival. Our findings suggest behavioral decisions made during incubation represent life‐history trade‐offs between predation risk and reproductive success on an unpredictable landscape.

Behavior and Movement of Wild Turkey Broods

ABSTRACTBehavioral and movement ecology of broods are among the most poorly understood aspects of wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) reproductive ecology. Recent declines in wild turkey productivity throughout the southeastern United States necessitate comprehensive evaluations of brood ecology across multiple spatial scales. We captured and marked 408 female wild turkeys with global positioning system (GPS)‐transmitters across 9 pine (Pinus spp.)‐dominated study sites in the southeastern United States during 2014–2019. We evaluated various aspects of the behavioral and movement ecology of 94 brood‐rearing females until brood failure or 28 days after hatch (i.e., when poults are classified as juveniles). We found that 34 (36.2%) females had broods (≥1 poult) survive to 28 days after hatch. Broods moved >500 m away from nest sites the day after hatching, and then moved progressively farther away from nest sites over time. Daily movements increased markedly the first 3 days after hatching, and broods moved >1,000 m/day on average thereafter. Females roosted broods an average of 202 m away from nest sites the first night after hatching, but distances between consecutive ground or tree roosts were variable thereafter. Daily core areas increased from 0.8 ha the day of hatch to 4.6 ha by day 28, and range sizes increased from 6.9 ha to 27.9 ha by day 28. Broods tended to consistently select open land cover types, whereas selection for other land cover types varied temporally after hatch day. Broods spent 89% of their time foraging. Predicted daily survival for broods decreased rapidly with increasing distance moved during the initial 3 days after hatching and showed less variation during the subsequent 2 weeks post‐hatch. Our findings parallel previous researchers noting that the most critical period for brood survival is the first week after hatch day. Previous researchers have attempted to identify vegetative communities used by broods under the assumption that these communities are a primary factor influencing brood success; however, our results suggest that brood survival is influenced by behavioral decisions related to movements during early brooding periods. © 2020 The Wildlife Society.

Precipitation and Reproduction are Negatively Associated with Female Turkey Survival

ABSTRACTUnderstanding how reproductive tradeoffs act in concert with abiotic elements to affect survival is important for effective management and conservation of wildlife populations, particularly for at‐risk or harvested species. Wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) are a high‐interest species for consumptive and non‐consumptive uses, and female survival is a primary factor influencing turkey population dynamics. We radio‐tracked and collected survival data on 140 female Merriam's wild turkeys (M. g. merriami) in the northern Black Hills, South Dakota, USA, 2016–2018. We developed and compared a set of candidate models to evaluate how nest incubation, brood rearing, and precipitation could be associated with female survival. Increased time spent incubating was associated with reduced female survival. Additionally, daily precipitation was associated with reduced survival of incubating females. Seasonal survival was lowest during spring and winter. A female that did not incubate a nest was predicted to have a higher rate of annual survival (0.53, 85% CI = 0.48–0.59) than a female that incubated a single nest (0.47, 85% CI = 0.42–0.53). Despite the relative proximity of population segments, we estimated that annual survival for nesting and non‐nesting females was lower in the northern Black Hills compared to annual female survival in the southern Black Hills, underscoring the need for region‐specific data when possible. © 2020 The Wildlife Society.

Comparison of Merriam's Turkey Harvest Strategies and Survival in Northern Arizona

ABSTRACTWe compared annual survival and hunting‐related mortality of female Merriam's turkey (Meleagris gallopavo merriami) between a period of relatively liberal hunting regulation (before 1990) and after implementation of a more conservative hunting regulation (after 1991) in Arizona, USA, to determine how those regulation changes affected hunting opportunity. Between January 2013 and October 2016, we used radiotelemetry to estimate survival and mortality rates of 185 female wild turkeys (60 juvenile, 125 adult) on 3 study areas in northern Arizona, which we compared with survival and mortality rates documented during an earlier study (1987–1990; Wakeling 1991). We used the nest survival approach in Program MARK to estimate survival and mortality rates for turkeys. Annual survival rate for radiomarked hens was 0.649 (95% CI = 0.597–0.702). Annual survival differed among Game Management Units, but not by season, year, age, or age × season interaction. Harvest rates were 0.024 (95% CI = 0.011–0.51) and 0.039 (95% CI = 0.022–0.071) for females during spring (Mar–May) and fall (Aug–Oct), respectively. The overall human‐caused mortality rate (i.e., fall harvest, spring harvest, unlawful take, wounding loss) was 0.073 (95% CI = 0.046–0.115). The decision to restrict fall turkey hunting opportunities using a regulated permit system had little effect on female turkey survival and hunting‐related mortality, but reduced the number of turkey hunters that could participate by 43%. © 2020 The Wildlife Society.

Spatiotemporal variability of fire characteristics affect animal responses in pyric landscapes

BackgroundBehavioral responses are the most immediate ways animals interact with their environment, and are primary mechanisms by which individuals mitigate mortality risk while ensuring reproductive success. In disturbance-driven landscapes, animals must adjust behaviors both spatially and temporally to maximize individual fitness. Prescribed fire is an important ecosystem driver in many coniferous forests, as fire cycles nutrients, creates spatially heterogeneous distributions in quantity and quality of forage and cover, and provides opportunities for fire-adapted taxa. Because fire immediately shifts resource distribution, and fire characteristics may drive behavioral responses to recent burns, we examined behavioral responses of 105 Global Positioning System (GPS)-tagged female eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris Linnaeus, 1758) to fire application at three sites in southeastern United States. We used satellite-derived imagery to calculate burn severity and burn heterogeneity. We also calculated distance to adjacent unburned stands and time-since-fire at GPS locations of each turkey while inside burned stands. We used behavioral change point analyses to estimate behavioral state for turkeys using burned areas, and generalized linear mixed models to estimate how fire characteristics affected turkey behavior inside burned areas.ResultsTurkeys focused their use in less severely burned areas, and were less likely to use the interior of burned areas. Turkeys were more likely to forage and rest in less severely burned areas, suggesting that managers should apply prescribed fire frequently enough to promote low-severity burns. We found that, as distance to neighboring unburned areas increased, turkeys were more likely to walk through the interiors of recently burned areas, as opposed to resting or foraging in them, suggesting that the interiors of some burn units are less suitable habitat in the year that prescribed fire is applied. Our findings suggest that prescribed fire applied to ensure that interior areas of burned stands are <250 m from adjacent unburned stands or to stands shaped to maximize edge-to-area ratios likely create more suitable conditions for foraging and resting.ConclusionsThe application and spatial arrangement of prescribed fire, even in frequently burned areas, affect animal response and behaviors. Prescribed fire regimes should be created in recognition that sizes of burned stands and fire severity, along with determinants of fire severity (e.g., fuel loads, return intervals, timing), are important influences on animal behavior in frequent-fire-managed landscapes.

Reproductive ecology of Gould's Wild Turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo mexicana) in Arizona

Gould's Wild Turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo mexicana) are the least-studied subspecies of Wild Turkey. Restoration efforts to establish sustainable populations of the subspecies continue throughout portions of the historical range in New Mexico and Arizona. Wild Turkey population viability is driven by reproductive success, yet information on aspects of the reproductive ecology of Gould's Wild Turkey is either scant or nonexistent. We used GPS telemetry to detail reproductive ecology of 23 females during 2017 in southeastern Arizona. We observed a nest initiation rate of 65% and nest success of 58%. Average estimated date for the onset of laying for initial nests was 17 May, which was later than for other subspecies of Wild Turkey. Estimated clutch size (x = 5.6 eggs) across 14 nests and vegetative characteristics at nests were comparable to nest sites selected by Eastern and Rio Grande subspecies, but did not appear to influence nest fate. Mean size of incubation recess ranges was 21 ha (SD = 99), but was highly variable across individual females and we found no evidence of habitat sampling by female Gould's Wild Turkeys before initiating laying of eggs. Females used open/herbaceous habitats and pine-oak woodlands throughout the reproductive period but type of conditions used varied between the laying, incubation, and brooding period. While based on 1 year of field data, our work represents the only assessment of the reproductive ecology of the Gould's Wild Turkey in the United States and should prompt further investigations into the biology of this iconic southwestern species.

Nesting perseverance by a female Gould's Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo mexicana) under multiple direct predation threats

Nesting perseverance by a female Gould's Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo mexicana) under multiple direct predation threats