FACTORS DETERMINING HABITAT SELECTION BY SPRING MIGRATING WATERFOWL ALONG THE WABASH RIVER, ILLINOIS
type: CreativeWork
description: The main proponent of management of any animal species is habitat management. The ability of habitats to maintain species communities will depend on the variation in both habitat structure and composition. While spatial variation in habitat resources plays a critical role in determining the distribution of species, an equally important consideration that must be accounted for is temporal variation in the needs of the target species. Nutritional requirements, and thus the habitats used to fulfil those nutritional needs, will be different depending on if the individual is breeding, migrating, molting, enduring winter, or establishing a new range. For waterfowl, we currently assume that winter and migration are nutritionally stressful and are consequently the periods most limiting to populations. The theory of ideal free distribution assumes that animals distribute themselves according to the factor most limiting to their fitness. In the case of non-breeding waterfowl, this factor is believed to be food. We assume if habitats with abundant food resources are provided, waterfowl will make use of those habitats. Deviations from an ideal free distribution based on food become problematic for managers since these deviations will keep some areas from being exploited to their potential, while other areas may become over-exploited. Recent observations have made it clear that this assumption may need to be reconsidered for effective waterfowl management. In this dissertation I quantitatively examine the degree to which spring migrating waterfowl conform to, or deviate from, an ideal free distribution based on food. Since food availability was not expected to account for 100% of waterfowl distribution, I further investigated what other potential habitat components influence the distribution of spring migrating waterfowl. In the first chapter of this dissertation, I explicitly tested the influence of food availability on waterfowl distribution. A series of paired 0.42 ha (1 acre…
abstract: The main proponent of management of any animal species is habitat management. The ability of habitats to maintain species communities will depend on the variation in both habitat structure and composition. While spatial variation in habitat resources plays a critical role in determining the distribution of species, an equally important consideration that must be accounted for is temporal variation in the needs of the target species. Nutritional requirements, and thus the habitats used to fulfil those nutritional needs, will be different depending on if the individual is breeding, migrating, molting, enduring winter, or establishing a new range. For waterfowl, we currently assume that winter and migration are nutritionally stressful and are consequently the periods most limiting to populations. The theory of ideal free distribution assumes that animals distribute themselves according to the factor most limiting to their fitness. In the case of non-breeding waterfowl, this factor is believed to be food. We assume if habitats with abundant food resources are provided, waterfowl will make use of those habitats. Deviations from an ideal free distribution based on food become problematic for managers since these deviations will keep some areas from being exploited to their potential, while other areas may become over-exploited. Recent observations have made it clear that this assumption may need to be reconsidered for effective waterfowl management. In this dissertation I quantitatively examine the degree to which spring migrating waterfowl conform to, or deviate from, an ideal free distribution based on food. Since food availability was not expected to account for 100% of waterfowl distribution, I further investigated what other potential habitat components influence the distribution of spring migrating waterfowl. In the first chapter of this dissertation, I explicitly tested the influence of food availability on waterfowl distribution. A series of paired 0.42 ha (1 acre…
author: O'Shaughnessy, Ryan
keywords: Habitat, Ideal free distribution, Marginal value theorem, Migration, Spring, Waterfowl
date published: 2014-12-01T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T04:34:36Z
provider: Southern Illinois University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Southern Illinois University