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Flooding regimes increase avian predation on wildlife prey in tidal marsh ecosystems

Within isolated and fragmented populations, species interactions such as predation can cause shifts in community structure and demographics in tidal marsh ecosystems. It is critical to incorporate species interactions into our understanding when evaluating the effects of sea‐level rise and storm sur...

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Autores principales: Thorne, Karen M., Spragens, Kyle A., Buffington, Kevin J., Rosencranz, Jordan A., Takekawa, John
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6374721/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30805142
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.4792
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author Thorne, Karen M.
Spragens, Kyle A.
Buffington, Kevin J.
Rosencranz, Jordan A.
Takekawa, John
author_facet Thorne, Karen M.
Spragens, Kyle A.
Buffington, Kevin J.
Rosencranz, Jordan A.
Takekawa, John
author_sort Thorne, Karen M.
collection PubMed
description Within isolated and fragmented populations, species interactions such as predation can cause shifts in community structure and demographics in tidal marsh ecosystems. It is critical to incorporate species interactions into our understanding when evaluating the effects of sea‐level rise and storm surges on tidal marshes. In this study, we hypothesize that avian predators will increase their presence and hunting activities during high tides when increased inundation makes their prey more vulnerable. We present evidence that there is a relationship between tidal inundation depth and time of day on the presence, abundance, and behavior of avian predators. We introduce predation pressure as a combined probability of predator presence related to water level. Focal surveys were conducted at four tidal marshes in the San Francisco Bay, California where tidal inundation patterns were monitored across 6 months of the winter. Sixteen avian predator species were observed. During high tide at Tolay Slough marsh, ardeids had a 29‐fold increase in capture attempts and 4 times greater apparent success rate compared with low tide. Significantly fewer raptors and ardeids were found on low tides than on high tides across all sites. There were more raptors in December and January and more ardeids in January than in other months. Ardeids were more prevalent in the morning, while raptors did not exhibit a significant response to time of day. Modeling results showed that raptors had a unimodal response to water level with a peak at 0.5 m over the marsh platform, while ardeids had an increasing response with water level. We found that predation pressure is related to flooding of the marsh surface, and short‐term increases in sea levels from high astronomical tides, sea‐level rise, and storm surges increase vulnerability of tidal marsh wildlife.
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spelling pubmed-63747212019-02-25 Flooding regimes increase avian predation on wildlife prey in tidal marsh ecosystems Thorne, Karen M. Spragens, Kyle A. Buffington, Kevin J. Rosencranz, Jordan A. Takekawa, John Ecol Evol Original Research Within isolated and fragmented populations, species interactions such as predation can cause shifts in community structure and demographics in tidal marsh ecosystems. It is critical to incorporate species interactions into our understanding when evaluating the effects of sea‐level rise and storm surges on tidal marshes. In this study, we hypothesize that avian predators will increase their presence and hunting activities during high tides when increased inundation makes their prey more vulnerable. We present evidence that there is a relationship between tidal inundation depth and time of day on the presence, abundance, and behavior of avian predators. We introduce predation pressure as a combined probability of predator presence related to water level. Focal surveys were conducted at four tidal marshes in the San Francisco Bay, California where tidal inundation patterns were monitored across 6 months of the winter. Sixteen avian predator species were observed. During high tide at Tolay Slough marsh, ardeids had a 29‐fold increase in capture attempts and 4 times greater apparent success rate compared with low tide. Significantly fewer raptors and ardeids were found on low tides than on high tides across all sites. There were more raptors in December and January and more ardeids in January than in other months. Ardeids were more prevalent in the morning, while raptors did not exhibit a significant response to time of day. Modeling results showed that raptors had a unimodal response to water level with a peak at 0.5 m over the marsh platform, while ardeids had an increasing response with water level. We found that predation pressure is related to flooding of the marsh surface, and short‐term increases in sea levels from high astronomical tides, sea‐level rise, and storm surges increase vulnerability of tidal marsh wildlife. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2019-01-13 /pmc/articles/PMC6374721/ /pubmed/30805142 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.4792 Text en Published 2019. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Research
Thorne, Karen M.
Spragens, Kyle A.
Buffington, Kevin J.
Rosencranz, Jordan A.
Takekawa, John
Flooding regimes increase avian predation on wildlife prey in tidal marsh ecosystems
title Flooding regimes increase avian predation on wildlife prey in tidal marsh ecosystems
title_full Flooding regimes increase avian predation on wildlife prey in tidal marsh ecosystems
title_fullStr Flooding regimes increase avian predation on wildlife prey in tidal marsh ecosystems
title_full_unstemmed Flooding regimes increase avian predation on wildlife prey in tidal marsh ecosystems
title_short Flooding regimes increase avian predation on wildlife prey in tidal marsh ecosystems
title_sort flooding regimes increase avian predation on wildlife prey in tidal marsh ecosystems
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6374721/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30805142
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.4792
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