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effects of water depth and vegetation on wading bird foraging habitat selection and foraging succes in the Everglades

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Date Issued:
2008
Summary:
Successful foraging by avian predators is influenced largely by prey availability. In a large-scale experiment at the Loxahatchee Impoundment Landscape Assessment project within the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, I manipulated two components of prey availability, water depth and vegetation density (submerged aquatic vegetation and emergent vegetation), and quantified the response by wading birds in terms of foraging habitat selection and foraging success. Manly's standardized selection index showed that birds preferred shallow water and intermediate vegetation densities. However, the treatments had little effect on either individual capture rate or efficiency. This was a consistent pattern seen across multiple experiments. Birds selected for certain habitat features but accrued little benefit in terms of foraging success. I hypothesize that birds selected sites with shallow water and intermediate vegetation densities because they anticipated higher prey densities, but they did not experience it here because I controlled for prey density.
Title: The effects of water depth and vegetation on wading bird foraging habitat selection and foraging succes in the Everglades.
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Name(s): Lantz, Samantha.
Charles E. Schmidt College of Science
Department of Biological Sciences
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Date Issued: 2008
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Physical Form: electronic
Extent: ix, 68 p. : ill.
Language(s): English
Summary: Successful foraging by avian predators is influenced largely by prey availability. In a large-scale experiment at the Loxahatchee Impoundment Landscape Assessment project within the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, I manipulated two components of prey availability, water depth and vegetation density (submerged aquatic vegetation and emergent vegetation), and quantified the response by wading birds in terms of foraging habitat selection and foraging success. Manly's standardized selection index showed that birds preferred shallow water and intermediate vegetation densities. However, the treatments had little effect on either individual capture rate or efficiency. This was a consistent pattern seen across multiple experiments. Birds selected for certain habitat features but accrued little benefit in terms of foraging success. I hypothesize that birds selected sites with shallow water and intermediate vegetation densities because they anticipated higher prey densities, but they did not experience it here because I controlled for prey density.
Identifier: 670429667 (oclc), 2788592 (digitool), FADT2788592 (IID), fau:3544 (fedora)
Note(s): by Samantha Lantz.
Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008.
Includes bibliography.
Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2008. Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Subject(s): Water birds -- Habitat -- Florida -- Everglades
Wetland ecology -- Florida -- Everglades
Habitat selection
Avian ecology -- Florida -- Everglades
Wildlife management -- Florida -- Everglades
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/2788592
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Host Institution: FAU