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Evaluating population viability and efficacy of conservation management using integrated population models Open
Predicting population responses to environmental conditions or management scenarios is a fundamental challenge for conservation. Proper consideration of demographic, environmental and parameter uncertainties is essential for projecting pop…
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Migration Distance and Body Condition Influence Shorebird Migration Strategies and Stopover Decisions During Southbound Migration Open
Technological constraints have limited our ability to compare and determine the proximate and ultimate drivers of migratory behavior in small-bodied birds. Small VHF transmitters (<1.0 g) paired with automated radio telemetry allowed us to…
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The bright incubate at night: sexual dichromatism and adaptive incubation division in an open-nesting shorebird Open
Ornamentation of parents poses a high risk for offspring because it reduces cryptic nest defence. Over a century ago, Wallace proposed that sexual dichromatism enhances crypsis of open-nesting females although subsequent studies found that…
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Escape responses of terrestrial and aquatic birds to drones: Towards a code of practice to minimize disturbance Open
Advances in human technology can lead to widespread and rapid increases in interactions between wildlife and potentially disturbing stimuli. The recreational use of drones is widespread and increasing, yet laws and codes of practice which …
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Parental cooperation in a changing climate: fluctuating environments predict shifts in care division Open
Aim Parental care improves the survival of offspring and therefore has a major impact on reproductive success. It is increasingly recognized that coordinated biparental care is necessary to ensure the survival of offspring in hostile envir…
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Migratory connectivity of Semipalmated Sandpipers and implications for conservation Open
Semipalmated Sandpiper (Calidris pusilla) populations have undergone significant declines at core nonbreeding sites in northeastern South America. Breeding populations have also declined in the eastern North American Arctic, but appear to …
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Adult sex ratio and operational sex ratio exhibit different temporal dynamics in the wild Open
Lay Summary Sex ratios vary within wild populations, but these variations and the relationship of different sex ratio indices are rarely explored. Using data from a well-monitored polygamous bird population, we show that adult sex ratio (A…
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Habitat and social factors influence nest-site selection in Arctic-breeding shorebirds Open
Habitat selection theory suggests that shorebirds should choose nest sites that maximize survival and fitness. We investigated how habitat, and proximity to conspecific or heterospecific nesting birds, was related to nest-site selection in…
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Impacts of anthropogenic disturbance on body condition, survival, and site fidelity of nonbreeding Piping Plovers Open
The impact of habitat loss on shorebirds may be exacerbated by disturbance from human recreational use, which further reduces the amount of coastal habitat that is functionally available. This can have consequences for the condition of ind…
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Blaming threatened species: media portrayal of human–wildlife conflict Open
Recent literature has urged the conservation science community to distinguish between human–wildlife and human–human conflict. Mislabelling conflicts is thought to constrain problem definition and hinder appropriate solutions. New to this …
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Disturbance shapes avian communities on a grassland–sagebrush ecotone Open
Ecotones, or transitional zones between ecosystems, are often hotspots for biodiversity and targets for conservation. Where the Great Plains meet the sagebrush ( Artemisia spp.) steppe, an opportunity exists to conserve habitat for the two…
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Scenarios of habitat management options to reduce predator impacts on nesting waders Open
Summary Wetland ecosystems throughout the world are threatened by drainage and intensification of agriculture. Consequently, many wetland species of conservation concern are now restricted to fewer and smaller sites, and maintaining these …
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Variability in the area, energy and time costs of wintering waders responding to disturbance Open
Birds’ responses to human disturbance are interesting due to their similarities to anti‐predator behaviour, and understanding this behaviour has practical applications for conservation management by informing measures such as buffer zones …
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Demographic response of Piping Plovers suggests that engineered habitat restoration is no match for natural riverine processes Open
Globally, riparian ecosystems are in decline due to anthropogenic modifications, including damming. Reduced frequency and altered timing of flood events decreases sandbar deposition, which reduces habitat for sandbar-breeding birds, includ…
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To exclose nests or not: structured decision making for the conservation of a threatened species Open
Decisions regarding endangered species recovery often face sparse data and multiple sources of uncertainty about the effects of management. Structured decision making ( SDM ) provides a framework for assembling knowledge and expert opinion…
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Vegetation structure influences predation rates of early nests in subarctic breeding waders Open
Ground‐nesting species are vulnerable to a wide range of predators and often experience very high levels of nest predation. Strategies to reduce nest vulnerability can include concealing nests in vegetation and/or nesting in locations in w…
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Contrasting genetic diversity and population structure among three sympatric Madagascan shorebirds: parallels with rarity, endemism, and dispersal Open
Understanding the relative contributions of intrinsic and extrinsic factors to population structure and genetic diversity is a central goal of conservation and evolutionary genetics. One way to achieve this is through comparative populatio…
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Hurricane Sandy and engineered response created habitat for a threatened shorebird Open
The intensity of Atlantic Ocean hurricanes is predicted to increase, and although disturbance is recognized as a fundamental driver of ecological processes, the benefits of hurricanes to ecological systems are seldom acknowledged. In Octob…
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Ontogenic differences in sexual size dimorphism across four plover populations Open
Sexual size dimorphism ( SSD ) among adults is commonly observed in animals and is considered to be adaptive. However, the ontogenic emergence of SSD , i.e. the timing of divergence in body size between males and females, has only recently…
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Rice fields along the East Asian-Australasian flyway are important habitats for an inland wader’s migration Open
To maintain and recover populations of migratory waders, we must identify the important stopover sites and habitat use along migration routes. However, we have little such information for waders that depend on inland freshwater areas compa…
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High fidelity: extra‐pair fertilisations in eight <i>Charadrius</i> plover species are not associated with parental relatedness or social mating system Open
Extra‐pair paternity is a common reproductive strategy in many bird species. However, it remains unclear why extra‐pair paternity occurs and why it varies among species and populations. Plovers ( Charadrius spp.) exhibit considerable varia…
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A management experiment evaluating nest‐site selection by beach‐nesting birds Open
It is important to understand nest‐site selection in avian species to inform appropriate conservation management strategies. Studies of habitat selection alone, however, may be misleading unless the consequences for survival and reproducti…
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Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Conservation Project on Two Threatened Birds: Applying Expert-Based Threat Analysis and Threat Reduction Assessment in a Mediterranean Wetland Open
We applied two recent approaches largely used in biological conservation: Threat Analysis (TAN) and Threat Reduction Assessments (TRAs), assessing the effectiveness of a project focused on two water-related bird species (common tern, Stern…
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Using a Bayesian network to understand the importance of coastal storms and undeveloped landscapes for the creation and maintenance of early successional habitat Open
Coastal storms have consequences for human lives and infrastructure but also create important early successional habitats for myriad species. For example, storm-induced overwash creates nesting habitat for shorebirds like piping plovers (C…
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Shorebird hunting in Barbados: Using stable isotopes to link the harvest at a migratory stopover site with sources of production Open
Understanding spatial connectivity of long-distance migrants is important for effective management and conservation of both game and nongame species. Hunting of Nearctic-breeding shorebirds occurs in the Caribbean and northern South Americ…
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Using remote cameras to validate estimates of nest fate in shorebirds Open
Nest survival is a key demographic parameter, yet little effort has been made to improve the accuracy of field‐based methods for assigning nest fates to shorebird nests. We used remote cameras to validate estimates of nest fate from field …
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Hatch-year Piping Plover (<i>Charadrius melodus</i>) prospecting and habitat quality influence second-year nest site selection Open
Juvenile prospecting, or exploratory behavior for gleaning information about areas or events, can have profound effects on the selection of future breeding habitat, particularly for birds with high site fidelity whose initial choice of bre…
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Direct and indirect effects of nesting density on survival and breeding propensity of an endangered shorebird Open
Density‐dependent regulation is a fundamental part of ecological theory and a significant driver of animal demography often through complex feedback loops. We investigated the relationship between flood‐ and demographically induced fluctua…
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Migration routes and strategies of Grey Plovers (Pluvialis squatarola) on the East Atlantic Flyway as revealed by satellite tracking Open
Background While the general migration routes of most waders are known, details concerning connectivity between breeding grounds, stopover sites and wintering grounds are often lacking. Such information is critical from the conservation pe…
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Seasonal distribution and foraging occurrence of Cook Inlet beluga whales based on passive acoustic monitoring Open
A paucity of information on the basic biology and ecology of Cook Inlet beluga whales Delphinapterus leucas remains a decade after the species was listed as endangered in 2008. The causes of its continued decline remain unclear. This lack …