Sandhill Crane Priority Use Cores

Publication Date

2017-09-08 15:44:49

Start Date

2014-02-01 21:09:03

End Date

2017-06-01 20:09:03

John Denton(Principal Investigator), Aaron Pearse(Author), Dana Varner(Author), Rob Spangler(Author), Jonas Davis(Author), Kirk Schroeder(Author), Mark Vrtiska(Author), Emily Munter(Author), Heather Johnson(Author), 2017-09-08(Publication), Sandhill Crane Priority Use Cores

Type: webLink

Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative(publisher)

In order to identify the most valuable habitats, we divided the surveyed area into 261 linear segments 2-km in length. Each flock counted was assigned to the nearest corresponding segment. We used methods described by Vander Wal and Rodgers (2012) to identify core use segments for ducks, Canada geese, and Sandhill Cranes for each survey flight. This method uses volume metrics by plotting utilization area against volume to assign core use status to segments where the slope of the line fitted to the data is greater than 1. Because we seek to identify habitats that are consistently valuable over time, we designated segments as “priority core” segments if core status occurred during at least 3 separate surveys in at least 2 different years. Based on prior research, we identified several habitat variables that may affect use by ducks, Canada geese, and Sandhill cranes. General models were constructed for each based on known or suspected habitat preferences using a multiple logistic regression approach. We then identified the most important variables using a backward stepwise procedure.

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