Northern Bobwhite Demographics and Resource Selection Are Explained by Prescribed Fire with Grazing and Woody Cover in Southwest Missouri

Abstract

Understanding the effects of landscape management on northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus; hereafter, bobwhite) population growth requires information about seasonaland stage-specific demographic parameters linked across the annual cycle. We review results to date from 3 years (2016–2018) of an intensive field study evaluating drivers of bobwhite population dynamics and resource selection during the breeding and non-breeding season in southwest Missouri, USA using data from adult and juvenile bobwhite fitted with radio-transmitters. Land cover of our study sites ranged from large blocks of native grasslands maintained with prescribed fire and grazing to more traditional management resulting in small patches of grasslands interspersed with food plots, disked idle areas, and woody cover. During the breeding season, relative probability of selection by broods increased in relation to proportion of native grass managed by grazing and burning and proportion of cropland. Brood survival was also greatest on native grasslands burned and grazed within the past 2 growing seasons. During the fall and winter, 1 E-mail: frank.r.thompson@usda.gov © Thompson III, Weegman, Sinnott, Mosloff, Hedges, Loncarich, Thompson, Burrell, Whitaker, and Hoover and licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0. 1 Thompson et al.: Northern Bobwhite Demographics in Southwest Missouri