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Effects of grassland management on overwintering bird communities

Amy E. M. Johnson,T. S. Sillett,David A. Luther,Valentine Herrmann,T. Akre,W. McShea

Published 2019 in Journal of Wildlife Management

ABSTRACT

Birds that depend on grassland and successional ‐ scrub vegetation communities are experiencing a greater decline than any other avian assemblage in North America. Habitat loss and degradation on breeding and wintering grounds are among the leading causes of these declines. We used public and private lands in northern Virginia, USA, to explore bene fi ts of grassland management and associated fi eld structure on supporting overwintering bird species from 2013 to 2016. Speci fi cally, we used non ‐ metric multidimensional scaling and multispecies occupancy models to compare species richness and habitat associations of grassland ‐ obligate and successional ‐ scrub species during winter in fi elds comprised of native warm ‐ season grasses ( WSG ) or non ‐ native cool ‐ season grasses ( CSG ) that were managed at di ff erent times of the year. Results demonstrated positive correlations of grassland ‐ obligate species with decreased vegetation structure and a higher percentage of grass cover, whereas successional ‐ scrub species positively correlated with increased vegetation structure and height and increased percentages of woody stems, forb cover, and bare ground. Fields of WSG supported higher estimated total and target species richness compared to fi elds of CSG. Estimated species richness was also in fl uenced by management timing, with fi elds managed during the previous winter or left unmanaged exhibiting higher estimated richness than fi elds managed in summer or fall. Warm ‐ season grass fi elds managed in the previous winter or left unmanaged had higher estimated species richness than any other treatment group. This study identi fi es important winter habitat associations ( e.g., vegetation height and fi eld openness ) with species abundance and richness and can be used to make inferences about optimal management practices for overwintering avian species in eastern grasslands of North America. © 2019 The Authors. Journal of Wildlife Management Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of The Wildlife Society.

PUBLICATION RECORD

  • Publication year

    2019

  • Venue

    Journal of Wildlife Management

  • Publication date

    2019-08-01

  • Fields of study

    Biology, Geography, Environmental Science

  • Identifiers
    DOI 10.1002/JWMG.21730
  • External record

    Open on Semantic Scholar

  • Source metadata

    Semantic Scholar

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