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Habitat Selection and Post-Release Movement of Reintroduced Brown Treecreeper Individuals in Restored Temperate Woodland

It is essential to choose suitable habitat when reintroducing a species into its former range. Habitat quality may influence an individual’s dispersal decisions and also ultimately where they choose to settle. We examined whether variation in habitat quality (quantified by the level of ground vegeta...

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Autores principales: Bennett, Victoria A., Doerr, Veronica A. J., Doerr, Erik D., Manning, Adrian D., Lindenmayer, David B., Yoon, Hwan-Jin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3515574/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23227192
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0050612
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author Bennett, Victoria A.
Doerr, Veronica A. J.
Doerr, Erik D.
Manning, Adrian D.
Lindenmayer, David B.
Yoon, Hwan-Jin
author_facet Bennett, Victoria A.
Doerr, Veronica A. J.
Doerr, Erik D.
Manning, Adrian D.
Lindenmayer, David B.
Yoon, Hwan-Jin
author_sort Bennett, Victoria A.
collection PubMed
description It is essential to choose suitable habitat when reintroducing a species into its former range. Habitat quality may influence an individual’s dispersal decisions and also ultimately where they choose to settle. We examined whether variation in habitat quality (quantified by the level of ground vegetation cover and the installation of nest boxes) influenced the movement, habitat choice and survival of a reintroduced bird species. We experimentally reintroduced seven social groups (43 individuals) of the brown treecreeper (Climacteris picumnus) into two nature reserves in south-eastern Australia. We radio-tracked 18 brown treecreepers from release in November 2009 until February 2010. We observed extensive movements by individuals irrespective of the release environment or an individual’s gender. This indicated that individuals were capable of dispersing and actively selecting optimum habitat. This may alleviate pressure on wildlife planners to accurately select the most optimum release sites, so long as the species’ requirements are met. There was significant variation in movement between social groups, suggesting that social factors may be a more important influence on movement than habitat characteristics. We found a significant effect of ground vegetation cover on the likelihood of settlement by social groups, with high rates of settlement and survival in dry forests, rather than woodland (where the species typically resides), which has implications for the success of woodland restoration. However, overall the effects of variation in habitat quality were not as strong as we had expected, and resulted in some unpredicted effects such as low survival and settlement in woodland areas with medium levels of ground vegetation cover. The extensive movement by individuals and unforeseen effects of habitat characteristics make it difficult to predict the outcome of reintroductions, the movement behaviour and habitat selection of reintroduced individuals, particularly when based on current knowledge of a species’ ecology.
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spelling pubmed-35155742012-12-07 Habitat Selection and Post-Release Movement of Reintroduced Brown Treecreeper Individuals in Restored Temperate Woodland Bennett, Victoria A. Doerr, Veronica A. J. Doerr, Erik D. Manning, Adrian D. Lindenmayer, David B. Yoon, Hwan-Jin PLoS One Research Article It is essential to choose suitable habitat when reintroducing a species into its former range. Habitat quality may influence an individual’s dispersal decisions and also ultimately where they choose to settle. We examined whether variation in habitat quality (quantified by the level of ground vegetation cover and the installation of nest boxes) influenced the movement, habitat choice and survival of a reintroduced bird species. We experimentally reintroduced seven social groups (43 individuals) of the brown treecreeper (Climacteris picumnus) into two nature reserves in south-eastern Australia. We radio-tracked 18 brown treecreepers from release in November 2009 until February 2010. We observed extensive movements by individuals irrespective of the release environment or an individual’s gender. This indicated that individuals were capable of dispersing and actively selecting optimum habitat. This may alleviate pressure on wildlife planners to accurately select the most optimum release sites, so long as the species’ requirements are met. There was significant variation in movement between social groups, suggesting that social factors may be a more important influence on movement than habitat characteristics. We found a significant effect of ground vegetation cover on the likelihood of settlement by social groups, with high rates of settlement and survival in dry forests, rather than woodland (where the species typically resides), which has implications for the success of woodland restoration. However, overall the effects of variation in habitat quality were not as strong as we had expected, and resulted in some unpredicted effects such as low survival and settlement in woodland areas with medium levels of ground vegetation cover. The extensive movement by individuals and unforeseen effects of habitat characteristics make it difficult to predict the outcome of reintroductions, the movement behaviour and habitat selection of reintroduced individuals, particularly when based on current knowledge of a species’ ecology. Public Library of Science 2012-12-05 /pmc/articles/PMC3515574/ /pubmed/23227192 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0050612 Text en © 2012 Bennett et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Bennett, Victoria A.
Doerr, Veronica A. J.
Doerr, Erik D.
Manning, Adrian D.
Lindenmayer, David B.
Yoon, Hwan-Jin
Habitat Selection and Post-Release Movement of Reintroduced Brown Treecreeper Individuals in Restored Temperate Woodland
title Habitat Selection and Post-Release Movement of Reintroduced Brown Treecreeper Individuals in Restored Temperate Woodland
title_full Habitat Selection and Post-Release Movement of Reintroduced Brown Treecreeper Individuals in Restored Temperate Woodland
title_fullStr Habitat Selection and Post-Release Movement of Reintroduced Brown Treecreeper Individuals in Restored Temperate Woodland
title_full_unstemmed Habitat Selection and Post-Release Movement of Reintroduced Brown Treecreeper Individuals in Restored Temperate Woodland
title_short Habitat Selection and Post-Release Movement of Reintroduced Brown Treecreeper Individuals in Restored Temperate Woodland
title_sort habitat selection and post-release movement of reintroduced brown treecreeper individuals in restored temperate woodland
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3515574/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23227192
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0050612
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