Results from Kentucky’s 10-year Bobwhite Recovery Plan

The northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus; hereafter, bobwhite) has experienced a precipitous population decline through almost all its historical range over the last 6 decades. We initiated a 10-year restoration plan in Kentucky, USA in 2008 and reported on it through 3 published “Road to Recovery” reports along with 30 peer-reviewed articles and abstracts, 2 technical documents, 7 theses or dissertations, and 11 popular literature pieces. Seven Quail Focus Areas were selected across the state based on site personnel, geographic position (east to west), and land ownership (e.g., private, public, state, federal) for monitoring and habitat management. The focus areas averaged 11,895 acres and area managed for quail on an annual basis ranged from 9% to 42%. Management took the form of herbicide applications, disking, fire, planting, grazing, control of woody vegetation, and mowing. Hierarchical distance sampling models using time-of-removal information to inform detection processes were used to assess bobwhite density on each focus area. Models were based on spring breeding bird point counts in which a suite of grassland songbirds were recorded and fall covey counts in which only bobwhite were recorded. Roadside surveys (direct observation) and hunter harvest information were also used for statewide comparisons of focus areas and statewide trends. Across all years and focus areas a 40% increase in the quail population was observed in 20 years (38%) of the possible 53 years of survey data. Stable to increasing trends were also observed in focal area populations of dickcissel (Spiza americana), eastern meadowlark (Sturnella magna), eastern kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus), field sparrow (Spizella pusilla), prairie warbler (Setophaga discolor), and Bell’s vireo (Vireo bellii). A focus on habitat management and associated monitoring on relatively small (\u3c20,000 acres) areas was shown to be successful on an individual area, as determined by increases in bird numbers across years and challenges completed in the Quail Plan but did not result in an observed increase in statewide quail indices. Future quail restoration plans in Kentucky should be directed more toward open production land, which is made up of 6 million acres of pastureland, hay land, row crop agriculture, reverting fields, reclaimed mineland, and grasslands. This work will be completed by utilizing working lands, such as field borders in row crop systems and grazing native warm-season grasses in pasture or hay systems, for wildlife activities. Monitoring systems on these production lands will be in the breeding season only and autonomous recording devices will be used in lieu of human observers to cover the greater area of open landscape

Maxent-directed field surveys identify new populations of narrowly endemic habitat specialists

Background Rare or narrowly endemic organisms are difficult to monitor and conserve when their total distribution and habitat preferences are incompletely known. One method employed in determining distributions of these organisms is species distribution modeling (SDM). Methods Using two species of narrowly endemic burrowing crayfish species as our study organisms, we sought to ground validate Maxent, a commonly used program to conduct SDMs. We used fine scale (30 m) resolution rasters of pertinent habitat variables collected from historical museum records in 2014. We then ground validated the Maxent model in 2015 by randomly and equally sampling the output from the model. Results The Maxent models for both species of crayfish showed positive relationships between predicted relative occurrence rate and crayfish burrow abundance in both a Receiver Operating Characteristic and generalized linear model approach. The ground validation of Maxent led us to new populations and range extensions of both species of crayfish. Discussion We conclude that Maxent is a suitable tool for the discovery of new populations of narrowly endemic, rare habitat specialists and our technique may be used for other rare, endemic organisms