Hannah L. Clipp, Christopher T. Rota, Catherine Johnson, Petra B. Wood
{"title":"Optimizing management of wildlife openings in forested landscapes for game birds and overall avian diversity\u0000 Optimizando la gestion de los claros forestales en paisajes de bosque para las aves de caza y la diversidad aviar general","authors":"Hannah L. Clipp, Christopher T. Rota, Catherine Johnson, Petra B. Wood","doi":"10.1002/wmon.70000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wmon.70000","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In forested landscapes of the Central Appalachians, wildlife openings are often created and maintained by land managers to provide early-successional habitat and food resources for game species, such as wild turkey (<i>Meleagris gallopavo</i>), ruffed grouse (<i>Bonasa umbellus</i>), and American woodcock (<i>Scolopax minor</i>). Although management may focus on these regionally important game birds, wildlife openings can also benefit a myriad of avian species and guilds, depending on local habitat features and landscape-level factors. Yet little effort has been made to investigate how to optimally manage wildlife openings to attract a full spectrum of avifauna throughout spring and summer and to maximize richness across habitat guilds. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify the characteristics of wildlife openings that support target game birds and a diversity of breeding and post-breeding songbirds. Specifically, we investigated the effects of local habitat attributes, opening size, management decisions, and landscape context on multi-species occupancy of 3 game birds (wild turkey, ruffed grouse, and American woodcock) during the game bird courtship season and songbird guild richness during the breeding and post-breeding seasons. During April–August 2019–2021, we used species-specific and community-wide point count surveys, game cameras, acoustic recording units, and transect surveys to sample avian communities in 335 wildlife openings within the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia, USA. We incorporated multiple data sources for game bird occurrence into multi-species occupancy models, which were constructed within a Bayesian framework, and we used Bayesian hierarchical community models to calculate breeding and post-breeding songbird guild richness, followed by generalized linear mixed effects models to assess relationships with wildlife opening characteristics. Results from our game bird analyses indicated that wild turkey, ruffed grouse, and American woodcock occupancy probabilities were best explained by predictor variables relating primarily to management actions, such as mowing frequency, and secondarily to size and local habitat attributes of the wildlife openings, such as area, percent sapling cover, and elevation. Songbird guild richness also responded to area and elevation, with additional influence from predictor variables relating to landscape context. The songbird model results further indicated that it is feasible to manage wildlife openings for the mutual benefit of different species groups across seasons. Ultimately, these findings can be integrated into the design and management of wildlife openings to support target game bird populations and promote avian diversity in forest ecosystems.</p><p>En los paisajes de bosque de los Apalaches Centrales, los administradores de tierras suelen crear y mantener los claros forestales para proveer hábitat de sucesíon temprana y recursos de comida para especies de c","PeriodicalId":235,"journal":{"name":"Wildlife Monographs","volume":"216 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144100704","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}