A management experiment evaluating nest‐site selection by beach‐nesting

Published source details Swaisgood R.R., Nordstrom L.A., Schuetz J.G., Boylan J.T., Fournier J.J. & Shemai B. (2018) A management experiment evaluating nest‐site selection by beach‐nesting. Journal of Wildlife Management, 82, 192-201.
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Summary

Remove vegetation to create nesting areas

A replicated, controlled study in 2012–2014 on a beach in California, USA (Swaisgood et al. 2018) found that clearing different amounts of vegetation had similar effects on nest density, presence and success for both California least tern Sternula antillarum browni and western snowy plover Charadrius nivosus nivosus. At the plot scale, vegetation cover had no significant effect on nest density or nest success for either species (reported as statistical model results). Nest density was the percentage of all nests present at the study site that occurred in a given plot. Nest success was defined by hatching of ≥1 chick/year. However, plot-scale vegetation cover did affect the predation rate on plover nests, although the effect differed between years (reported as statistical model results). At a smaller scale, there was no significant difference between cleared and uncleared patches (100 patches/plot) in terms of nest presence or nest success. This was true for both terns (cleared: 35% of patches had nests, 79% of nests successful; uncleared: 37% had nests, 76% successful) and plovers (cleared: 4.6% had nests, 56% successful; uncleared: 4.3% had nests, 60% successful). The study used twelve 65 x 90 m plots on one beach. Each plot was split into one hundred 6.5 x 9 m patches. Before nest initiation each year, vegetation was cleared from individual patches in all plots, to generate plot-scale vegetation cover of 5–15% (note the limited range here). Plots were surveyed three times/week through the nesting season.