TY - JOUR
T1 - Human-dominated land cover corresponds to spatial variation in Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura) reproductive output across the United States
AU - Muñoz, David
AU - Miller, David
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank members of the Mourning Dove Task Force for supplying data. We thank the Pennsylvania State Data Learning Center for help in identifying land cover data resources. We thank J. Sauer and 2 anonymous reviewers for feedback improving this manuscript. Funding statement: Data and analysis were supported by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Webless Migratory Game Bird Research Program. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant No. DGE1255832 awarded to D. Muñoz. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Ethics statement: All harvest of Mourning Doves was done legally under the appropriate state and federal regulations as compiled as verified by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Parts Program. Author contributions: D. Muñoz processed land-cover datasets, developed analyses, and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. D. Miller processed bird data, contributed to the development of the analyses, and revised subsequent drafts of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © American Ornithological Society 2020. All rights reserved. For permissions, e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.
PY - 2020/2/19
Y1 - 2020/2/19
N2 - Studies examining impacts of land cover typically focus on abundance, distribution, and/or community richness, overlooking underlying demographic processes such as survival or reproduction. Here, we present findings from a unique dataset that allowed us to measure the relationship between land cover and reproductive output across the distribution of the Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura). We used hunter-derived, Mourning Dove wing data across 1,271 counties in the United States from 2008 to 2014 to estimate spatially explicit age ratios (juveniles: adults), an index of local reproductive output. We also used raster imagery data to estimate relationships between reproductive output and land cover and crop cover. We found that low reproductive output occurs in regions where Mourning Dove declines have been steepest. Our findings reveal that impacts of land cover vary geographically, but even at a coarse resolution, small changes in the relative proportion of human-dominated landscapes can have a significant impact on the reproductive output of this generalist species. Maize and soybean systems correlate with up to a 57% reduction in Mourning Dove reproductive output in the eastern United States. In the western United States, developed areas correlate with a 41% increase in reproductive output. Across the United States, native habitats had neutral or negative relationships with age ratios. Our study contributes continental-scale evidence that Mourning Dove reproductive output is largely driven by human-dominated land cover including agricultural and residential areas. With Mourning Doves declining across the range, discerning more fine-scale land cover factors is critical for ensuring Mourning Dove populations persist into the future.
AB - Studies examining impacts of land cover typically focus on abundance, distribution, and/or community richness, overlooking underlying demographic processes such as survival or reproduction. Here, we present findings from a unique dataset that allowed us to measure the relationship between land cover and reproductive output across the distribution of the Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura). We used hunter-derived, Mourning Dove wing data across 1,271 counties in the United States from 2008 to 2014 to estimate spatially explicit age ratios (juveniles: adults), an index of local reproductive output. We also used raster imagery data to estimate relationships between reproductive output and land cover and crop cover. We found that low reproductive output occurs in regions where Mourning Dove declines have been steepest. Our findings reveal that impacts of land cover vary geographically, but even at a coarse resolution, small changes in the relative proportion of human-dominated landscapes can have a significant impact on the reproductive output of this generalist species. Maize and soybean systems correlate with up to a 57% reduction in Mourning Dove reproductive output in the eastern United States. In the western United States, developed areas correlate with a 41% increase in reproductive output. Across the United States, native habitats had neutral or negative relationships with age ratios. Our study contributes continental-scale evidence that Mourning Dove reproductive output is largely driven by human-dominated land cover including agricultural and residential areas. With Mourning Doves declining across the range, discerning more fine-scale land cover factors is critical for ensuring Mourning Dove populations persist into the future.
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U2 - 10.1093/condor/duaa003
DO - 10.1093/condor/duaa003
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85090671571
SN - 0010-5422
VL - 122
JO - Condor
JF - Condor
IS - 2
M1 - duaa003
ER -