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Effects Of Silvicultural Techniques And Landscape Management On Habitat Quality And Relative Abundance For Northern Bobwhites In A Pine Plantation Forest, Jason Douglas Burke

LSU Master's Theses

Pine plantation forests are increasing in scope across the southeastern United States, particularly Louisiana. These areas provide poor quality bobwhite brood-rearing habitats, and become increasingly degraded without periodic disturbance. Poor quality habitat conditions at a landscape-level scale usually results in reduced fall bobwhite body weights, creating low survival rates. We researched 4 understory vegetation management techniques (ie. mowing, no treatment, burn only, and imazapyr with burning) within pine plantations to evaluate their effects on vegetation composition and structure and on arthropod abundance and availability relative to bobwhite brooding habitat in 2002-2005. We used 1,155 human-imprinted bobwhite chicks to estimate foraging …