Introduction to Geographic Information Systems for undergraduates in natural resources ecology & management

Ecological Methods (AEcl/Biol 371) is an upper-level course in the Department of Natural Resource Ecology & Management at Iowa State University. Not simply a techniques course, it integrates topics from lectures and labs such as population and landscape ecology so that students learn the skills needed to identify and solve applied ecological and wildlife management problems. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have become an integral component of ecological research and natural resource management. Over the course of three, three-hour lab periods students in 371 use ESRI ArcGIS to create, manipulate, and display geographic data from the Iowa 4-H Center in Boone County

Egg size of the Mountain Plover

The Mountain Plover (Charadrius montanus) is a shorebird of conservation concern that breeds in disturbed areas of the Great Plains and Great Basin. This species has an uncommon mating system known as a “rapid multi-clutch” in which male and female plovers tend to separate nests. The male sets up a territory and displays to attract a female. After mating she lays a three-egg clutch and leaves, abandoning him to incubate the eggs and tend to the chicks by himself (Knopf and Wunder 2006). The female lays another three-egg clutch and cares for those entirely by herself. Assuming a female lays only one clutch of male-tended eggs prior to laying her clutch of three, then most would have an overall clutch size of six eggs. This is thought to happen over a relatively short time period, with the female laying for roughly three days for the male, initiating her own nest shortly thereafter and then laying at the same intervals for her own nest. This has the potential to place a physical strain on the female and the result of this may be differences in egg size through time. Studies have linked egg size to chick survival in shorebirds but none have looked at differences in male- versus female-tended nests. A previous study of fledging success of this species found that female-tended broods had higher survival than male-tended (Dinsmore and Knopf 2005)

Incubation Activity of the Mountain Plover (Charadrius montanus)

The Mountain Plover is a shorebird of conservation concern that breeds in disturbed areas of the Great Plains and Great Basin of western North America (Knopf and Wunder 2006). It has an uncommon mating system known as “rapid multi-clutch” where male and female plovers tend separate nests. In this system the male sets up a territory and displays to attract a female. After mating she lays a 3-egg clutch and leaves. He incubates the eggs and tends to the chicks by himself. The female has the opportunity to mate with other males but ultimately she lays another 3-egg clutch and cares for those entirely by herself. Previous studies found that nests attended by male Mountain Plovers have greater nest survival than females (0.49 for males, 0.33 for females; Dinsmore et al. 2002)

Variation in circulating prolactin in incubating Mountain Plovers

We examined circulating plasma prolactin (PRL) levels in incubating Mountain Plovers, a shorebird of conservation concern with an uncommon parental care system where males and females tend to separate nests. We modeled PRL related to the sex of the incubating bird and examined how it varied throughout incubation and the nesting season. PRL levels were similar for incubating male and female Mountain Plovers. The mean circulating plasma PRL concentration for incubating female plovers was 32.40 ng/ml (n = 33) and ranged from 7.33 to 78.04 ng/ml. The mean for males was 29.36 ng/ml (n = 36) and there was greater variation in the samples with the lowest measured at 5.18 ng/ml and highest at 140.86 ng/ml. There was no relationship between day of incubation and the concentration of circulating PRL for either incubating female plovers or male plovers and day of incubation did not explain a significant proportion of the variance in PRL concentration for either sex (R2 = 0.002 and 0.034 respectively). There was no relationship between the Julian day of nesting season and concentration of circulating PRL for either sex and day of season did not explain a significant proportion of the variance for either females (R2 = 0.047) or males (R2 = 0.001). This study provides further information about the relationship between parental care and circulating PRL and the breeding biology of a shorebird of conservation concern

Water, water, everywhere… Introducing water monitoring and integrating water into 7th grade science curricula

Water is one of Iowa’s most valuable natural resources, used for public consumption, agricultural production, and recreation as well as many others. However, over 500 of Iowa’s waterways are impaired and less than 10% of Iowa’s original wetlands remain. To teach students about the importance of this resource and expose them to a wide variety of water testing techniques the Symbi GK-12 program at Iowa State University purchased GREEN Low Cost Water Monitoring Kits from LaMotte (~$45 each) and seventh grade science students from Brody Middle School, Des Moines collected water samples from Gray’s Lake on 22 and 29 September, 2011

Egg volumes of male-and female-tended Mountain Plover clutches

The Mountain Plover is a shorebird of conservation concern that breeds in disturbed areas of the Great Plains and Great Basin (Knopf and Wunder 2006). It has an uncommon mating system known as a “Rapid multi-clutch” where male and female plovers tend to separate nests. In this system the male sets up a territory and displays to attract a female. After mating she lays a three-egg clutch and leaves. He incubates the eggs and tends to the chicks by himself. The female has the opportunity to mate with other males but ultimately she lays another three-egg clutch and cares for those entirely by herself

Age-specific breeding probabilities of Mountain Plovers in Montana

The age of first reproduction is important in both life-history theory and conservation biology. It can have a large impact on individual fitness, which in turn influences population dynamics. Evolutionary theory predicts that organisms should reproduce as early as they are capable of doing so, although there are potential tradeoffs if breeding is costly. The Mountain Plover (Charadrius montanus, Knopf and Wunder 2006):is a shorebird of conservation concern that nests in disturbed areas of the Great Plains and Great Basin. It is a moderate-sized bird (90-110 g) that is sexually monomorphic and drably-colored and usually has a three-egg clutch. Mountain Plovers have an uncommon parental care system where both male and females tend individual nests unaided. Males arrive at the breeding grounds in early to mid-April, establish loose territories, and compete for females. Mountain Plovers are capable of breeding at age one but not all do so, even with the potential increase in fitness. This is may be a consequence of individuals delaying breeding to gain additional experience. Mountain Plovers have the opportunity for multiple reproductive attempts since they are fairly long-lived with several birds documented living \u3e 10 years.

Incubation behavior and dispersal patterns in the Mountain Plover (Charadrius montanus)

The rapid multi-clutch mating system of the Mountain Plover (Charadrius montanus) provides an interesting opportunity to examine sex differences in natal and breeding dispersal. I used nest locations from a breeding population of plovers in north-central Montana over a 13-year period (1995-2007) to examine patterns of sex bias in their dispersal. Additionally, I looked at the influence of prior experience and sylvatic plague on breeding dispersal in successive years. I also modeled successive nest fate using breeding dispersal distance with sex, previous nest fate, and presence of sylvatic plague as covariates in the model. I found no sex-bias in natal dispersal or within-year breeding dispersal. The mean dispersal distance of male plovers in consecutive years was 2.75 km (95% CI 1.51 to 4.00) and for females was 4.64 km (95% CI 2.76 to 5.52). Birds that were successful moved 3.02 km (95% CI 1.87 to 4.17) on average between nesting attempts, while those whose nests had failed moved 5.06 km (95% CI 2.53 to 7.58). The best model of between-year breeding dispersal contained the full set of parameters, with sex of the tending adult and prior nest fate having the strongest effects. The estimate of dispersal distance for females was positive ( Female = 0.86, 95% CI 0.67 to 1.05) as well as the estimate of dispersal distance for birds whose nests had failed the previous year ( Fail = 0.82, 95% CI 0.52 to 1.13). There was a year effect but no effect of sylvatic plague on dispersal. This study not only provides a better understanding of dispersal in an uncommon mating system but also is important in understanding the movements of a species of conservation concern. I also monitored incubation activity of Mountain Plovers in Montana using a combination of video monitoring and temperature data-logging. The rapid multi-clutch mating system of the Mountain Plover provides an interesting opportunity to examine sex-specific differences in uniparental care. To explore possible sex differences in breeding behavior I modeled the duration of departures of incubating adults to see if activity patterns differed between sexes. In addition, the effects of time of day, nest age, day of season, and year were also included. I recorded 857 hours of video of 24 incubating Mountain Plovers at 25 nests during the 2007 field season and \u3e10,000 hours of temperature data from 117 individuals at 142 nests during the 2006-2008 nesting seasons. Video data revealed that males on average made 1.48 departures hour-1 over the course of a 24-hour period (n = 6 deployments, SE = 0.35) and females made 1.41 departures hour-1 (n = 26 deployments, SE = 0.11). From the combined video and temperature data males contributed 1,925 nocturnal departures with a mean duration of 0.38 hr (SE = 0.01) while females contributed 2,716 nocturnal departures with a mean duration of 0.36 hr (SE = 0.01). The quadratic effect of the time of departure was the most important factor in the length of nocturnal off-bouts. Other effects that were included in competitive models were the cubic and linear effects of time of departure and the highest ambient temperature the previous day. The day of incubation and the day of the season were also important in explaining duration of off-bouts. Sex was not an important predictor of duration of departure. This study not only provides further information about incubation patterns in an uncommon mating system, but also is important to gaining a better understanding of behavior in this species of conservation concern

Incubation behavior of the Mountain Plover

e rapid multi-clutch mating system of the Mountain Plover (Charadrius montanus) is an opportunity to examine sex-specific differences in uniparental care. We monitored nocturnal incubation activity in Phillips County, Montana using video recordings and temperature data-loggers. Possible differences in activity were modeled using the duration of nest departures of incubating adults. We examined the effects of sex, time of departure, nest age, day of season, maximum temperature, precipitation the previous day, and year on nest departures. We recorded 857 hours of video at 25 nests and \u3e10,000 hours of temperature data from 142 nests during the 2006-2008 breeding seasons. Males contributed 1925 nocturnal departures with a mean duration of 0.38 hr (SE = 0.01) while females contributed 2,716 nocturnal departures with a mean duration of 0.36 hr (SE = 0.01). The time of the nocturnal departure was the only factor that had a strong effect on the duration of the departure. Our study furthers knowledge of incubation patterns in an uncommon mating system and helps understand the behavior of this species of conservation concern