waterfowl

Waterfowl are of significant cultural, economic, and conservation importance along the Texas Gulf Coast. Millions of ducks utilize this region as they move along the Central Flyway each winter. Understanding body condition patterns for these birds has important implications for overwinter survival, breeding success, and population regulation. This is especially true for females, which are typically the limiting sex in ducks. Herein, we an- alyze sex- and age-specific differences in body condition of non-breeding dabbling ducks over the winter hunting season in coastal Texas. We collab...

Submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) beds are shallow coastal habitats that are increasingly exposed to the effects of sea-level rise (SLR). In the northern Gulf of Mexico (nGoM), an area especially vulnerable to SLR, the abundance and distribution of SAV food resources (seeds, rhizomes, and tissue) can influence the carrying capacity of coastal marshes to support wintering waterfowl. Despite the known importance of SAV little is known about their distribution across coastal landscapes and salinity zones or how they may be impacted by SLR. We estimated SAV cover and seed biomass in coastal...

Rice and natural seeds are important foods for waterfowl in rice growing regions such as the Gulf Coast Prairies of Louisiana and Texas. We conducted a study from August-November 2010 and collected 2,250 soil cores in 50 farmed and 50 idle rice fields in the Louisiana Chenier Plain (CP) and Texas Mid-Coast (TMC) to estimate biomass of waste rice and natural seeds. Estimates are necessary to assess carrying capacity for waterfowl in this region by the Gulf Coast Joint Venture. Waste rice abundance was greatest in CP farmed fields that produced a second crop of rice (i.e., ratoon) and were...

As a surrogate species for Strategic Habitat Conservation, the mottled duck (Anas fulgivula) is an indicator species to coastal marsh health and function. Currently, biologists have a relatively poor understanding of regional mottled duck movements. We outfitted adult female mottled ducks with solar satellite transmitters during summer 2009-2011. Movement patterns were measured among years and phenology, in relation to available habitat at the landscape level, and in association to potential disturbance. Movement distances were measured in ArcGIS and then evaluated using analysis of...

Managers of public lands affording waterfowl hunting strive to provide quality hunting opportunities while supporting biological needs of birds during winter. Understanding responses by mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) to diurnal hunting activities would help shape hunt regimes that satisfy management goals. We examined use of a wildlife management area (WMA) in western Mississippi by 28 radio-marked female mallards when waterfowl hunting season was closed and during the season when none, half, or all of the WMA was hunted during two winters 2010-2012. The proportion of each day that mallards...

Body condition, or an individual's ability to address metabolic needs, is an important measure of organism health. For waterfowl, body condition, usually some measure of fat, provides a useful proxy for assessing energy budgets during different life history periods and potentially is a measure of response to ecosystem changes. The mottled duck (Anas fulvigula) is relatively poorly studied in respect to these dynamics and presents a unique case because its non-migratory life-history strategy releases it from metabolic costs experienced by many related migratory waterfowl species....