Abstract
Habitat selection involves a series of decisions that are arguably the most important decisions that animals make and these decisions occur at multiple hierarchical spatial scales. Colonial-nesting birds face a unique challenge when selecting a nest site because each bird’s choices are severely constrained by other birds within their breeding colony. Individuals must seek out optimum nesting locations within the constraint of the colony’s geographic location. We investigated how water depth and proximity to open water affected 4th-order nest-site selection of Western and Clark’s Grebes (Aechmophorus occidentalis, Aechmophorus clarkii), colonial nesting waterbirds that have declined in abundance across their range. We used an orthomosiac that we created from ~ 500 aerial drone images of a large breeding colony to construct a Resource Selection Function to describe microhabitat features that influence nest-site placement within the colony footprint. Grebes preferred to nest in portions of the colony with intermediate water depths (40-80 cm during nest construction) and they preferred to nest in portions of the colony furthest from open water. Understanding how individual birds make use of available microhabitat features within the footprint of their breeding colony can help inform conservation efforts of colonial-nesting birds, particularly for species that nest in wetland habitats whose water levels are managed for human use.
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Data Availability
The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not owned by U.S. Geological Survey and they are available upon request from the authors.
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Acknowledgements
Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. A large thank you to Jeff Sloan and Josip Adams of U.S. Geological Survey for providing the drones and outstanding training and support. We thank Betsy Wagner of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game for assisting in grebe surveys at Cascade Reservoir. We also thank the Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Madi Thurston and Theo Murphy for their assistance in field data collection.
Funding
This work was supported by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Grant #661951. Funding for the graduate student and field crew was supported by the Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program. This study was performed under the auspices of University of Idaho IACUC protocol #2017-23. The drones used in this study were provided by the U.S. Geological Survey Office of Aviation Services.
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Deo Lachman, Courtney Conway, Kerri Vierling, Ty Matthews, and Diane Evans Mack all contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Deo Lachman. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Deo Lachman, Courtney Conway, and Kerri Vierling. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Lachman, D.A., Conway, C.J., Vierling, K.T. et al. Drones and Bathymetry Show the Importance of Optimal Water Depth for Nest Placement Within Breeding Colonies of Western and Clark’s Grebes. Wetlands 42, 110 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-022-01602-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-022-01602-1