If You Build It, They Will Come: Evaluating the Role of Man-Made Nest Platforms and Anthropogenic Landscape Change on Shaping the Habitat Suitability and Breeding Success of Ospreys (Pandion haliaetus) in West-Central Idaho

Faculty Mentor Information

Dusty Perkins and Marc Bechard

Presentation Date

7-2016

Abstract

Ospreys (Pandion haliaetus) are fish-eating, top predators of aquatic ecosystems that serve as useful sentinel species for monitoring environmental contaminants and ecosystem health. Ospreys further appear highly adaptable to human-dominated landscapes and readily nest on man-made substrates that occur within an array of land use and cover (LULC) types and human settlement regimes. In Long Valley Idaho, the abundance of breeding Ospreys has declined slightly since the late 1970’s while the distribution of nests and nest substrate use has changed dramatically. To evaluate if changes in nest substrate use, coupled with increasing anthropogenic landscape conversion, could be creating ecological traps within Osprey breeding habitat, we evaluated relationships among nest site characteristics and Osprey nesting success over two breeding seasons.

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If You Build It, They Will Come: Evaluating the Role of Man-Made Nest Platforms and Anthropogenic Landscape Change on Shaping the Habitat Suitability and Breeding Success of Ospreys (Pandion haliaetus) in West-Central Idaho

Ospreys (Pandion haliaetus) are fish-eating, top predators of aquatic ecosystems that serve as useful sentinel species for monitoring environmental contaminants and ecosystem health. Ospreys further appear highly adaptable to human-dominated landscapes and readily nest on man-made substrates that occur within an array of land use and cover (LULC) types and human settlement regimes. In Long Valley Idaho, the abundance of breeding Ospreys has declined slightly since the late 1970’s while the distribution of nests and nest substrate use has changed dramatically. To evaluate if changes in nest substrate use, coupled with increasing anthropogenic landscape conversion, could be creating ecological traps within Osprey breeding habitat, we evaluated relationships among nest site characteristics and Osprey nesting success over two breeding seasons.