Local and Landscape Habitat Associations of Shorebirds in Wetlands of the Sacramento Valley of California

作者：Matthew E. Reiter, Mike A. Wolder, Jennifer E. Isola, Dennis Jongsomjit, Catherine M. Hickey, Mike Carpenter, Joseph G. Silveira · 发表于：Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management · 年份：2015 · DOI：10.3996/012014-jfwm-003 · 被引用次数：18 · 研究领域：Coastal wetland ecosystem dynamics、Avian ecology and behavior、Wildlife Ecology and Conservation

Abstract The Sacramento Valley of California is a site of international importance for shorebirds despite having lost >90% of its historic wetlands. Currently both managed wetlands and flooded agriculture are important habitats for shorebird populations, but the extent of flooded agriculture may be declining in early winter when shorebirds need to acquire resources postmigration to survive winter. We employed long-term shorebird monitoring data to evaluate factors influencing abundance and species richness of shorebirds using the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex in early winter (November–December) between 2000 and 2009. We quantified the effect of local attributes of the wetland management unit (wetland type, size, and topography) as well as factors in the surrounding landscape (proportion of surface water and housing density) using generalized linear mixed models. We assessed a local-scale model, including covariates representing the area of six wetland types within the management unit, an index to the proportion of the management unit that had a tapered-edge (i.e., topography where flooded areas grade to exposed shoreline then upland), and a year effect. In this local-scale model, shorebird abundance had a significant positive association with the area of seasonally flooded marsh (SFM) and summer water. Topographical variation, characterized by the amount of tapered-edge, also had a significant positive effect on the abundance of shorebirds and species ric...