23 research outputs found

    History\u27s Shadow: Native Americans and Historical Consciousness in the Nineteenth Century

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    Review of: "History\u27s Shadow: Native Americans and Historical Consciousness in the Nineteenth Century," by Steven Conn

    Demographic Responses of Least Terns and Piping Plovers to the 2011 Missouri River Flood—A Large-Scale Case Study

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    2011 led to substantial changes in abundance and distribution of unvegetated sand habitat. This river system is a major component of the breeding range for interior Least terns (Sternula antillarum; “terns”) and piping plovers (Charadrius melodus; “plovers”), both of which are Federally listed ground-nesting birds that prefer open, unvegetated sand and gravel nesting substrates on sandbars and shorelines. The 2011 flood inundated essentially all tern and plover nesting habitat during 2011, but it had potential to generate post-flood habitat conditions that favored use by terns and plovers in subsequent years. We compared several tern and plover demographic parameters during the pre-flood and post-flood periods on the Garrison Reach and Lake Sakakawea, North Dakota, to determine how this event influenced these species (both species on the Garrison Reach, and plovers only on Lake Sakakawea). The principal parameters we measured (nest survival, chick survival, and breeding population) showed spatial and temporal variation typical of opportunistic species occupying highly variable habitats. There was little evidence that nest survival of least terns differed between pre- and post-flood. During 2012 when habitat was most abundant on the Garrison Reach and Lake Sakakawea, piping plover nest survival was higher than in any other year in the study, but returned to rates comparable to pre-flood years in 2013. Chick survival for terns on the Garrison Reach and plovers on Lake Sakakawea showed a similar pattern to plover nest survival, with the 2012 rate exceeding all other years of the study, and the remaining pre-flood and post-flood years being generally similar but slightly higher in post-flood years. However, plover chick survival on the Garrison Reach in 2012 was similar to pre-flood years, and increased annually thereafter to its highest rate in 2014. Although wide confidence intervals precluded firm conclusions about flood effects on breeding populations, the general pattern suggested lower populations of plovers but higher populations of least terns immediately after the flood. Despite near total absence of breeding habitat on either study area during the flood of 2011, populations of both species persisted after the flood due to their propensity to disperse and/or forgo breeding for at least a year. Tern and plover populations have similarly persisted and recovered after the flood, but their mechanisms for persistence likely differ. Data on tern dispersal is generally lacking, but they are thought to show little fidelity to their natal grounds, have a propensity to disperse potentially long distances, and routinely forgo breeding until their second year, thus a lost opportunity to breed in a given area may be easily overcome. Plovers exhibit stronger demographic ties to the general area in which they previously nested, yet they occupy much broader nesting habitat features than terns and exploit three major landforms in the Dakotas (free-flowing rivers, reservoir shorelines, and wetland shorelines). Consequently, dispersal to and from non-Missouri River habitats and potential to exploit non-traditional habitats likely sustained the Northern Great Plains population through the flood event. Terns and plovers normally occupy similar habitats on the Missouri River and both species experienced similar loss of a breeding season due to the flood. Persistence of these populations after the flood underscores the importance of understanding their unique demographic characteristics and the context within which the Missouri River operates

    Impacts of extreme environmental disturbances on piping plover survival are partially moderated by migratory connectivity

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    Effective conservation for listed migratory species requires an understanding of how drivers of population decline vary spatially and temporally, as well as knowledge of range-wide connectivity between breeding and nonbreeding areas. Environmental conditions distant from breeding areas can have lasting effects on the demography of migratory species, yet these consequences are often the least understood. Our objectives were to 1) evaluate associations between survival and extreme environmental disturbances at nonbreeding areas, including hurricanes, harmful algal blooms, and oil spills, and 2) estimate migratory connectivity between breeding and nonbreeding areas of midcontinental piping plovers (Charadrius melodus). We used capture and resighting data from 5067 individuals collected between 2002 and 2019 from breeding areas across the midcontinent, and nonbreeding areas throughout the Gulf of Mexico and southern Atlantic coasts of North America. We developed a hidden Markov multistate model to estimate seasonal survival and account for unobservable geographic locations. Hurricanes and harmful algal blooms were negatively associated with nonbreeding season survival, but we did not detect a similarly negative relationship with oil spills. Our results indicated that individuals from separate breeding areas mixed across nonbreeding areas with low migratory connectivity. Mixing among individuals in the nonbreeding season may provide a buffering effect against impacts of extreme events on any one breeding region. Our results suggest that understanding migratory connectivity and linking seasonal threats to population dynamics can better inform conservation strategies for migratory shorebirds

    Narrating Black Hawk: Indian Wars, Memory, and Midwestern Identity

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    404 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2005.My project discusses how individual Native Americans are constructed and re-constructed as historical subjects over time and argues also that the "imagined Indians" who emerge from this process become readily enmeshed in notions of regional identity. Using the example of Black Hawk, a nineteenth-century Sauk leader, I illustrate how Native people are especially prone to both conscious and unconscious manipulation in historical memory---and incorporation into regional identity on terms other than their own---due to the lack of conventional and unmediated written sources presented from their own perspective. What historians are often left with is an archive of problematic sources that consists of very nearly all that is known about a Native person---even though this archive may deal with only a very small portion of that person's life. In this dissertation I analyze how this limited archive was later used to produce and re-produce narratives which cast Black Hawk in several different---and often contradictory---roles and discuss how each narrative has impacted upon others to eventually produce the "Black Hawk" (or, more precisely, the "Black Hawk"s) that we know today. In doing so, I describe also complex role of Black Hawk and other Native people in the formation of a distinctly "Midwestern" regional identity.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD

    Selection Indicates Preference in Diverse Habitats: A Ground-Nesting Bird (Charadrius melodus) Using Reservoir Shoreline

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    Animals use proximate cues to select resources that maximize individual fitness. When animals have a diverse array of available habitats, those selected could give insights into true habitat preferences. Since the construction of the Garrison Dam on the Missouri River in North Dakota, Lake Sakakawea (SAK) has become an important breeding area for federally threatened piping plovers (Charadrius melodus; hereafter plovers). We used conditional logistic regression to examine nestsite selection at fine scales (1, 3, and 10 m) during summers 2006–2009 by comparing characteristics at 351 nests to those of 668 random sites within nesting territories. Plovers selected sites (1 m 2) that were lower than unused random sites, increasing the risk of nest inundation. Plovers selected nest sites that were flat, had little silt, and at least 1 cobble; they also selected for 3-m radius nest areas that were relatively flat and devoid of vegetation and litter. Ninety percent of nests had,38 % coverage of silt and,10 % slope at the site, and,15 % coverage of vegetation or litter and,31 % slope within the 3-m radius. Gravel was selected for at nest sites (11 % median), but against in the area 10-m from the nest, suggesting plovers select for patches or strips of gravel. Although elevation is rarely evaluated in studies of ground-nesting birds, our results underscore its importance in habitat-selection studies. Relative to where plovers historically nested, habitat at SAK has more diverse topography, substrate composition, vegetation communities, and greater water-level fluctuations. Accordingly, our results provide an example of how habitat-selection results can be interpreted as habitat preferences because they are not influenced by desired habitats being scarce or absent. Further, our results will be useful for directing habitat conservatio

    Demographic Responses of Least Terns and Piping Plovers to the 2011 Missouri River Flood—A Large-Scale Case Study

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    2011 led to substantial changes in abundance and distribution of unvegetated sand habitat. This river system is a major component of the breeding range for interior Least terns (Sternula antillarum; “terns”) and piping plovers (Charadrius melodus; “plovers”), both of which are Federally listed ground-nesting birds that prefer open, unvegetated sand and gravel nesting substrates on sandbars and shorelines. The 2011 flood inundated essentially all tern and plover nesting habitat during 2011, but it had potential to generate post-flood habitat conditions that favored use by terns and plovers in subsequent years. We compared several tern and plover demographic parameters during the pre-flood and post-flood periods on the Garrison Reach and Lake Sakakawea, North Dakota, to determine how this event influenced these species (both species on the Garrison Reach, and plovers only on Lake Sakakawea). The principal parameters we measured (nest survival, chick survival, and breeding population) showed spatial and temporal variation typical of opportunistic species occupying highly variable habitats. There was little evidence that nest survival of least terns differed between pre- and post-flood. During 2012 when habitat was most abundant on the Garrison Reach and Lake Sakakawea, piping plover nest survival was higher than in any other year in the study, but returned to rates comparable to pre-flood years in 2013. Chick survival for terns on the Garrison Reach and plovers on Lake Sakakawea showed a similar pattern to plover nest survival, with the 2012 rate exceeding all other years of the study, and the remaining pre-flood and post-flood years being generally similar but slightly higher in post-flood years. However, plover chick survival on the Garrison Reach in 2012 was similar to pre-flood years, and increased annually thereafter to its highest rate in 2014. Although wide confidence intervals precluded firm conclusions about flood effects on breeding populations, the general pattern suggested lower populations of plovers but higher populations of least terns immediately after the flood. Despite near total absence of breeding habitat on either study area during the flood of 2011, populations of both species persisted after the flood due to their propensity to disperse and/or forgo breeding for at least a year. Tern and plover populations have similarly persisted and recovered after the flood, but their mechanisms for persistence likely differ. Data on tern dispersal is generally lacking, but they are thought to show little fidelity to their natal grounds, have a propensity to disperse potentially long distances, and routinely forgo breeding until their second year, thus a lost opportunity to breed in a given area may be easily overcome. Plovers exhibit stronger demographic ties to the general area in which they previously nested, yet they occupy much broader nesting habitat features than terns and exploit three major landforms in the Dakotas (free-flowing rivers, reservoir shorelines, and wetland shorelines). Consequently, dispersal to and from non-Missouri River habitats and potential to exploit non-traditional habitats likely sustained the Northern Great Plains population through the flood event. Terns and plovers normally occupy similar habitats on the Missouri River and both species experienced similar loss of a breeding season due to the flood. Persistence of these populations after the flood underscores the importance of understanding their unique demographic characteristics and the context within which the Missouri River operates

    Asymmetric benefits of a heterospecific breeding association vary with habitat, conspecific abundance and breeding stage

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    Heterospecific breeding associations may benefit individuals by mitigating predation risk but may also create costs if they increase competition for resources or are more easily detectable by predators. Our understanding of the interactions among hetero- and conspecifics is often lacking in mixed species colonies. Here, we test how the presence of hetero- and conspecifics influence nest and chick survival for two listed (under the U.S. Endangered Species Act) migratory species breeding on the Missouri River, USA. We monitored 2507 piping plover Charadrius melodus nests and 3245 chicks as well as 1060 least tern Sternula antillarum nests and 1374 chicks on Lake Sakakawea, the Garrison River Reach and the Gavins Point Reach for varying years between 2007 and 2016. Piping plover nest and chick survival improved with the presence and abundance of least terns, but least terns only benefited from piping plover presence for certain study areas and breeding stages. Piping plover nest survival was also improved by the presence and abundance of conspecifics on the Garrison River Reach and was negatively influenced by conspecific presence on Lake Sakakawea. Least tern chick survival improved with the presence of other least terns only on the Gavins Point Reach. Ultimately, the heterospecific breeding association between plovers and terns is mutualistic but asymmetric and is moderated by habitat, abundance of conspecifics and breeding stage. Our results highlight that spatiotemporal variation in the interactions among individuals breeding in groups precludes simple generalizations and suggests that management focused on one species may restrict benefits to that focal species if nest site requirements for heterospecifics are not also included. Includes Supplementary Appendi

    Model averaged parameter estimates, standard errors (SE), lower 95% confidence limits (LCL), upper 95% confidence limits (UCL), and standardized odds ratios for variables from 20 candidate models we used to examine potential influences on nest-site selection of Piping Plovers at Lake Sakakawea.

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    <p>Variables with 95% confidence limits that do not overlap 0 are depicted in bold.</p>a<p>Percent coverage of silt in substrate at site.</p>b<p>Percent coverage of pebble in substrate.</p>c<p>Site measurement.</p>d<p>Percent coverage of gravel in substrate.</p>e<p>Presence or absence of a cobble.</p>f<p>Percent bare substrate obstruction (vegetation+leaf litter+small debris).</p>g<p>Distance (m) to shoreline of Lake Sakakawea.</p>h<p>Relative elevation (m) of the nest above the pool level at initiation.</p>i<p>Mean of 4 measurements taken 3 m from the site.</p>j<p>Mean of 4 measurements taken 10 m from the site.</p

    Median and 10<sup>th</sup> and 90<sup>th</sup> percentiles of nest and random sites for variables that influence nest-site selection of Piping Plovers on Lake Sakakawea.

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    a<p>Percent coverage of silt in substrate at site.</p>b<p>Percent coverage of gravel in substrate at site.</p>c<p>Presence or absence of a cobble.</p>d<p>Relative elevation of the nest above the pool level at initiation.</p>e<p>Slope within 1 m of the site.</p>f<p>Percent bare substrate obstruction (vegetation+leaf litter+small debris).</p>g<p>Slope within 3 m of the site.</p>h<p>Percent coverage of gravel in substrate 10 m from the site.</p
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