Journal
BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION
Volume 160, Issue -, Pages 1-9Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2012.12.031
Keywords
Habitat selection; Black kite; Milvus migrans; Radio-tracking; Habitat restoration; Non-breeders
Funding
- Natural Research Ltd.
- Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion [CGL2008-01781, CGL2011-28103]
- Consejeria de Medio Ambiente de la Junta de Andalucia [JA-58]
- Junta de Andalucia [RNM 1790, RNM 3822, RNM 7307]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Preserving large predators is important but challenging because these species are typically wide-ranging, select multiple habitats at different scales and often present spatial or habitat separation between the breeder and floater sectors of a population. In addition, most of our knowledge on raptor floaters' habitat requirements comes from large solitary species, whose floaters often occupy temporary settlement areas spatially separate from breeding locations. Here, we examine space and habitat use by a loosely colonial, wetland-dependent raptor, the Black kite (Milvus migrans), in a population where floaters co-exist with territory holders, enabling a direct comparison of their habitat preferences. The study was conducted in Donana National Park (South-Western Spain), a seasonally drying marshland currently surrounded by intensive agriculture and rice-fields. Intensive radio-tracking revealed that breeders and floaters selected and avoided the same habitats despite a radical, four-to-eight fold difference in their home-range dimensions: all kites over-selected open habitats suitable for their aerial foraging modes and avoided woodland and farmland. These results suggest a continuum of raptor population structures ranging from solitary species whose floaters select different habitats than breeders and are concentrated in spatially separate settlement areas, to colonial and semi-social species whose floaters fully coexist with breeders with shared habitat preferences. Both extremes of this continuum will pose challenges for conservation management. In solitary species, special conservation efforts may be required to identify and manage temporary settlement areas, while in gregarious species, the larger ranges of floaters may expose them to different threats than breeders, whose occurrence and consequences may be subtle to identify. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available