Pollentier Christopher D, Hardy Michael A, Lutz R Scott, Hull Scott D, Zuckerberg Benjamin
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Office of Applied Science Madison Wisconsin USA.
Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison Wisconsin USA.
Ecol Evol. 2021 Dec 1;11(24):18248-18270. doi: 10.1002/ece3.8419. eCollection 2021 Dec.
Extensive restoration and translocation efforts beginning in the mid-20th century helped to reestablish eastern wild turkeys () throughout their ancestral range. The adaptability of wild turkeys resulted in further population expansion in regions that were considered unfavorable during initial reintroductions across the northern United States. Identification and understanding of species distributions and contemporary habitat associations are important for guiding effective conservation and management strategies across different ecological landscapes. To investigate differences in wild turkey distribution across two contrasting regions, heavily forested northern Wisconsin, USA, and predominately agricultural southeast Wisconsin, we conducted 3050 gobbling call-count surveys from March to May of 2014-2018 and used multiseason correlated-replicate occupancy models to evaluate occupancy-habitat associations and distributions of wild turkeys in each study region. Detection probabilities varied widely and were influenced by sampling period, time of day, and wind speed. Spatial autocorrelation between successive stations was prevalent along survey routes but was stronger in our northern study area. In heavily forested northern Wisconsin, turkeys were more likely to occupy areas characterized by moderate availability of open land cover. Conversely, large agricultural fields decreased the likelihood of turkey occupancy in southeast Wisconsin, but occupancy probability increased as upland hardwood forest cover became more aggregated on the landscape. Turkeys in northern Wisconsin were more likely to occupy landscapes with less snow cover and a higher percentage of row crops planted in corn. However, we were unable to find supporting evidence in either study area that the abandonment of turkeys from survey routes was associated with snow depth or with the percentage of agricultural cover. Spatially, model-predicted estimates of patch-specific occupancy indicated turkey distribution was nonuniform across northern and southeast Wisconsin. Our findings demonstrated that the environmental constraints of turkey occupancy varied across the latitudinal gradient of the state with open cover, snow, and row crops being influential in the north, and agricultural areas and hardwood forest cover important in the southeast. These forces contribute to nonstationarity in wild turkey-environment relationships. Key habitat-occupancy associations identified in our results can be used to prioritize and strategically target management efforts and resources in areas that are more likely to harbor sustainable turkey populations.
始于20世纪中叶的大规模恢复和迁移努力，有助于在东部野生火鸡的整个祖先分布范围内重新建立其种群。野生火鸡的适应性导致其在美国北部最初重新引入时被认为不利的地区进一步扩大种群。识别和理解物种分布以及当代栖息地关联，对于指导不同生态景观下有效的保护和管理策略至关重要。为了调查美国威斯康星州北部森林茂密和东南部以农业为主这两个形成鲜明对比的地区野生火鸡分布的差异，我们在2014 - 2018年3月至5月期间进行了3050次雄火鸡鸣叫计数调查，并使用多季节相关重复占用模型来评估每个研究区域野生火鸡的占用 - 栖息地关联和分布。检测概率差异很大，并且受采样期、一天中的时间和风速影响。沿调查路线连续站点之间的空间自相关普遍存在，但在我们的北部研究区域更强。在森林茂密的威斯康星州北部，火鸡更有可能占据开阔土地覆盖适度的区域。相反，大片农田降低了威斯康星州东南部火鸡占据的可能性，但随着高地硬木林覆盖在景观中变得更加聚集，占据概率增加。威斯康星州北部的火鸡更有可能占据积雪较少且玉米种植的行间作物比例较高的景观。然而，我们在两个研究区域均未找到支持性证据表明调查路线上火鸡的遗弃与积雪深度或农业覆盖比例有关。在空间上，模型预测的斑块特定占用估计表明，火鸡分布在威斯康星州北部和东南部是不均匀的。我们的研究结果表明，火鸡占据的环境限制因素在该州的纬度梯度上各不相同，开阔覆盖、积雪和行间作物在北部有影响，而农业区域和硬木林覆盖在东南部很重要。这些因素导致野生火鸡与环境关系的非平稳性。我们结果中确定的关键栖息地 - 占据关联可用于在更有可能容纳可持续火鸡种群的地区，对管理努力和资源进行优先排序并进行战略定位。
