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Dietary niche relationships of white ibis, tricolored heron and snowy egret nestlings in the northern Everglades

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Date Issued:
2010
Summary:
Food availability is the primary factor affecting the reproductive success in many species of birds. Diet composition can indicate diet quality, habitat use and niche requirements for breeding birds and may be variable across short and long-term time scales. Identifying primary prey types of nesting wading birds is important for the hydrologic restoration of wetlands. I collected nestling boluses during the 2008 and 2009 nesting seasons from three species of wading birds that nest in the northern Everglades: White Ibis, Tricolored Herons and Snowy Egrets. White Ibis bolus composition was dominated by crayfish in both years, but exhibited some variation with landscape water depth in 2009; fish use was greatest when the wetland landscape was relatively dry. In contrast, the prey of Tricolored Herons and Snowy Egrets were primarily fish and their respective diets did not differ from one another in either fish species composition or size structure.
Title: Dietary niche relationships of white ibis, tricolored heron and snowy egret nestlings in the northern Everglades.
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Name(s): Boyle, Robin A.
Charles E. Schmidt College of Science
Department of Biological Sciences
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Date Issued: 2010
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Physical Form: electronic
Extent: ix, 95 p. : ill.
Language(s): English
Summary: Food availability is the primary factor affecting the reproductive success in many species of birds. Diet composition can indicate diet quality, habitat use and niche requirements for breeding birds and may be variable across short and long-term time scales. Identifying primary prey types of nesting wading birds is important for the hydrologic restoration of wetlands. I collected nestling boluses during the 2008 and 2009 nesting seasons from three species of wading birds that nest in the northern Everglades: White Ibis, Tricolored Herons and Snowy Egrets. White Ibis bolus composition was dominated by crayfish in both years, but exhibited some variation with landscape water depth in 2009; fish use was greatest when the wetland landscape was relatively dry. In contrast, the prey of Tricolored Herons and Snowy Egrets were primarily fish and their respective diets did not differ from one another in either fish species composition or size structure.
Identifier: 700215884 (oclc), 2953207 (digitool), FADT2953207 (IID), fau:3562 (fedora)
Note(s): by Robin A. Boyle.
Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010.
Includes bibliography.
Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Subject(s): Wetland ecology -- Florida -- Everglades
Bird populations -- Florida -- Everglades
Water birds -- Florida -- Everglades
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/2953207
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Host Institution: FAU