Science - Research
Mountain Plover Nest Marking Success 

RMBO's nest marking program has improved reproductive output of Mountain Plover populations in Colorado and Nebraska.  However, questions have been raised about whether nest-marking is a management strategy that is capable of improving the viability of Mountain Plover populations. In order to estimate the value of nest marking in Nebraska we focused on (1) quantifying daily survival rates for nests protected under this program, (2) comparing the fates of protected nests to unprotected artificial nests at risk of being destroyed by cultivation, and (3) estimating the value of nest-marking based on the comparison marked and unmarked nests.

Our results suggest that while the impact of tillage operations on nests varies, protecting nests in agricultural landscapes from accidental tillage provides a way to increase Mountain Plover nest survival in Nebraska. Excluding accidental nest tillage, nest predation represented the largest number of failures of “marked” nests. This suggests that predator communities in agricultural fields on this study area are not a major source of nest loss. However, results from artificial nests suggests that mechanical tillage operations like disking and sweeping cause considerable Mountain Plover nest failure.

Our artificial nest experiment suggests that some agricultural tillage operations can have a significant negative effect on Mountain Plover nest survival  The severity of any tillage effect depends on a number of variables, including the tillage operation being utilized, the time of the year when the nest is initiated, and crop type. Results from our study suggest that some tillage operations (e.g. disking and sweeping) likely have a significant negative effect on nest survival across this landscape (Figure 2), for both original and renesting birds.