Effects of planted cover management on buffer prey and their role in waterfowl nest success / Barbara Anne Maile

Recent focus has been directed at the potential for alternative prey species to buffer waterfowl nest depredation since many nest predators also select small mammals and invertebrates. We studied relationships between management of planted cover, vegetation, landscape attributes,nest survival, and small mammal and beetle abundance and biomass.Forty-five projects managed as waterfowl nesting habitat were sampled in the Aspen Parkland of Saskatchewan and Manitoba in 2000 and 2001. Models that included vegetation characteristics but excluded management effects were the most parsimonious for vole, shrew, and total small mammal abundance, based on Akaike's Information Criterion (AICc). Small mammal abundance increased with vegetation density for all mammal groups.Beetles abundance was explained by duff depth and conserved soil moisture rather than management. Using an extension of the Mayfield method, nest success probabilities were modelled using AIC to select the most parsimonious mod