Early Successional Habitat: Its Importance and Management for Upland Birds and Other Wildlife

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Early Successional HabitatIts Importance and
Management for Upland Birds and Other Wildlife

• USDA-NRCS
• National Environmental Compliance Meeting

Wes Burger Dept. Wildlife Fisheries Mississippi
State University
Sacramento, CA June 14 17, 2005
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Unpopular Habitats?

• Askin (2001) Wildlife Society Bulletin
• Early successional habitats unpopular
• Uninteresting
• Unattractive
• Conservation connotation with tree planting
• Creating early successional habitat often
  involves removing trees

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Overview

• Early Successional Habitats
• What are they?
• Why are they important?
• What are the trends?
• Programmatic and practice opportunities
• Partnerships and Products
• Creating Early Successional Habitat through
  Federal Farm Programs An objective-driven
  Approach
• Light-disking to enhance early succssional
  wildlife habitat on grasslands on grasslands and
  old fieldsWildlife benefits and erosion
  potential
• Grassland Bird Response to Field Borders
• NRCS Bobwhite Restoration Project

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Ecological Succession
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Ecological Succession
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Ecological Succession

• Orderly Process of plant community development
  involving changes in plant species composition
  over time

Early Succession
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Early Successional Plant Communities

• Occur following some form of disturbance
• Dynamic
• Productive
• Ephemeral
• Disturbance-dependent

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Natural Processes Responsible

• Fire
• Hurricanes/Tornados
• Windthrow
• Drought
• Flooding
• Grazing/herbivory

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Successsional Process Influenced by

• Temperature
• Rainfall
• Length of growing season
• Hydrology
• Fertility
• Disturbance return interval

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Disturbance-Dependent Communities

• Annual weed
• Grasslands/prairie
• Shrub-successional
• Rangelands
• Moist-soil plant communities
• Glades
• Savannas
• Pine/grassland

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Ecological Succession

• Successional ASeral_at_ Stages

• Annual Weed
• Perennial Forb
• Perennial Grass
• Old field
• Young Forest

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Annual Weed

• Abundant bare ground
• Little litter accumulation
• Annual seed producing plants
• Extremely productive
• Short lived

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Perennial Forb

• Plants reproduce by vegetative means, live gt 1
  year
• Litter accumulation
• Less seed production

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Perennial Grass

• Grass-dominated
• Litter accumulation increases
• Little seed production

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Old Field/shrub land

• Combination of
• Perennial forbs
• Grasses
• Woody shrubs and saplings

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Young Forest
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Successional Trajectory

• Greenash/box elder/cottonwood
• Pine

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Seed Source and Hydrology
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Wildlife Adaptations

• Specific Seral Stage of Specific Ecosystem

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Species Dependent on Multiple Seral Stages
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Hardwood PlantingsSuccessional Processes
0-4 yrs
Mature
7-15 yrs
21-27 yrs
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Hardwood PlantingsChanges in avian community
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Early Successional Species
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Temporal Patterns

• Natural processes gt 1000 years BP
• Native American fire regimes 1000 250 years BP
• European settlement
• Land clearing 250 100 years BP
• Conversion to agriculture 250 100 years BP
• Agricultural abandonment 100 50 years BP
• Reforestation 50 years BP
• Interruption of Natural Disturbance Regimes

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Ozark Upland Hardwoods
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Pine-bluestem Communities
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Loss of Early Successional Communities

• Interruption of natural disturbance regimes
• Fire suppression
• Land abandonment/reforestation
• Expansion of forest into former openlands
• Acceleration of forest succession
• Conversion
• Agricultural intensification
• Introduction/establishment of exotics

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Conservation Concerns

• Of ecosystems in Eastern North America that have
  declined by gt 98, 80 are disturbance dependent
• 55 grassland, savanna, barrens
• 24 shrubland

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Wildlife Response
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Creating Early Successional Habitat

• Management Regimes and Programmatic Opportunities

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Creation and Maintenance of Disturbance-dependence
systems

• Disturbance Essential
• In the absence of natural regimes we must
  substitute proactive management
• Disturbance type may vary among systems
• Wetland Bottomland Hardwood Flooding
• Pine/Grassland Fire
• Prairie Fire
• Rangeland Grazing
• Requires disturbance regimes
• Spatial and Temporal heterogeneity
• Disturbance return interval will vary along
  latitudinal and rainfall/hydrological gradients

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Disturbance Regime
Less More
Less More
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Management Practices

• Set Back Succession

• Fire
• Disking
• Roller chopping
• Mowing
• Brown tree cutter
• Herbicide

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Effects of Fire on Succession

• Grassland
• Old field
• Open Pine/grassland
• Pine Forest w/hardwood understory

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Soil Disturbance
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Disking
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Rotational Agriculture
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Forest Management
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Technology Can Help Restore Ecosystem Function
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Agricultural Systems

• Uniquely positioned to created and maintain early
  successional communities and associated
  conservation values
• Highly disturbed systems based on annual and
  perennial herbaceous communities
• Early successional communities may provide more
  production flexibility than other natural
  communities
• Federal farm programs provide economic incentives
  to create and maintain early successional
  communities
• We need to deploy these programs in an
  intelligent fashion to meet the needs of both
  producers and the resource

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Programmatic Opportunities

• Enrollment should be prioritized to accomplish
  regional and national conservation objectives
• WRP
• FLEP
• WHIP
• EQIP
• CSP
• CRP

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Wildlife Habitat

• ?
• Enrolled ? Wildlife Habitat
• Requires premeditated planning
• Attention to
• Habitat requirements
• Cover crop selection
• Recurring management actions

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3.25 Million Acres
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CRP Mid-contract Management
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CRP Mid-contract Management
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Mid-contract Management
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CRP Vegetation Changes
SUMMER VEGETATION STRUCTURE
SUMMER VEGETATION STRUCTURE
LITTER COVER()
GRASS CANOPY()
90
80
80
70
GRASS CAN.
70
60
LITTER COV.
60
50
50
40
40
30
30
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
89
90
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92
93
94
95
SAMPLE YEAR
SAMPLE YEAR
86
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88
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87
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Mid-contract Management
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Creating Early Successional Habitat

• New Information and Technology Transfer Tools

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Creating Early Successional Wildlife Habitat
Through Federal Farm Programs an
objective-driven approach

• Farm-scale planning process
• Objective-driven approach
• Habitat-based
• 3 case studies
• Birdlands
• Bryan Farm
• Hardemann Co. TN

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NRCS Planning Process

• Pre-planning
• Identify conditions that triggered the planning
  process
• Collect materials and information needed for
  planning process
• Phase 1. Collection and analysis at the
  conservation planning scale
• Step 1. Identify problems and opportunities
• Step 2. Determine objectives
• Step 3 Inventory resources
• Step 4. Analyze resources
• Phase 2. Decision support at the conservation
  planning scale
• Step 5. Formulate alternatives
• Step 6. Evaluate alternatives
• Step 7. Make decisions
• Phase 3. Application at the conservation planning
  scale
• Step 8. Implement the plan
• Step 9. Evaluate the plan

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Wildlife Habitat ManagementUsing Farm Programs

• Planning Process
• Identify producer objectives
• Consider seasonal habitat requirements of species
• Evaluate landscape at appropriate spatial scale
  to identify deficiencies in life requisites
• Determine plant community that will provide
  essential life requisites
• Develop a plan that depicts landscape as you want
  it to look
• Identify farm programs and practices that can be
  used to create desired components
• Be prepared, know your programs

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Wildlife Habitat inFarm Bill Programs

• Identify producer objectives
• Know the habitat requirements of target species
• Know the programs
• Practice selection should be objective driven
• Avoid program driven approach
• Use multiple programs to accomplish management
  objectives
• Be flexible

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Bryan Case Study
Riparian Corridor
Pasture Buffer
Non-crop fallow area
Filter Strips
Riparian Buffer
Field Border
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Light Disking to Enhance Wildlife Habitat Value

• Need for disturbance
• Seasonal response
• Strip-disking patterns
• Erosion potential

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Grassland Bird Response to Fieldborders

• NRCS Technote
• FWRC Research Advance
• Grassland birds
• Winter
• Summer
• Northern Bobwhite
• Winter and Summer response
• Habitat Suitablity

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Early Successional Bird Response to Field
BordersBreeding Season
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Early Successional Bird Response to Field Borders
Winter Sparrows
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Bobwhite Response to Field Borders

• 23 increase in breeding season abundance
• 66 increase in fall density
• May increase foraging efficiency for chicks
• 6 change in land use resulted in a 15 increase
  in suitable habitat

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59 usable
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Agronomic costs and benefits of field borders

• Opportunity costs of field borders
• Effects of field border establishment on infield
  weeds

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Opportunity Costs of Field Borders

• Evaluate spatially explicit crop yield in
  relation to proximity to edge and adjacent
  community type
• Evaluate the effects of field border
  establishment on edge yield

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Opportunity Costs of Field Borders
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Opportunity Costs of Field Borders
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Spatial Distribution of Weeds
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Grassland Bird Response to Field Border Width

• Species richness
• Abundance
• Reproductive success

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Grassland Bird Response to Field Border Width -
Winter
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Grassland Bird Response to Field Border Width -
Summer
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NRCS Northern Bobwhite Restoration Project

• Large-scale NRCS funded project to evaluate
  bobwhite response to farm bill program practices
• Delivered through Dept. of Wildlife Fisheries,
  Mississippi State University

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Purpose

• .to utilize habitat restoration and population
  goals established in the Northern Bobwhite
  Conservation Initiative (NBCI) and to measure the
  response of bobwhite to applied farm bill
  conservation practices to reach these goals.

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Small Grants Program

• NRCS-WHMI contract with MSU
• 395,045 available/year in subcontracts.
• MSU, in cooperation with Guidance and Technical
  Committees
• Defines research priorities
• Develops RFP and review criteria and process
• Assembles RFP project proposals
• Distributes proposals to Technical Committee for
  review and ranking.
• Identifies projects selected for funding and
  actual funding level.
• MSU
• Notifies PIs of acceptance/rejection
• Establishes and manages subcontracts
• Provides funding for subcontracts
• Monitors subcontract project progress
• Collates subcontract annual reports and assembles
  into project report for NRCS-WHMI
• Repeats process in years 2-3.
• Assembles final project report and products.

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Proposal Submission Summary

• 20 projects
• FL, NC, MS, SC, TN, KS, TX, IA, MO, VI, AR, LA,
  IL, NJ
• Total Funds Requested 2,062,870
• Total Funds Available 1,174,135

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Review Process

• Projects reviewed by NRCS Bobwhite Project
  Technical Committee
• 7 reviewers
• 4 review criteria areas
• Purpose and goals
• Experimental design
• Project management
• Products

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Funded Projects

• Recommend funding 11 projects
• 1,114,684.00 over 3 years
• Projects to be conducted in 9 states (7 BCRs)
• Arkansas
• Missouri
• South Carolina
• North Carolina
• Mississippi
• Florida
• Texas
• Illinois
• Tennessee

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Response of Northern Bobwhite Populations and the
Associated Avian Community to Landscape-Level
Management in the Central Hardwoods BCR

• Arkansas
• Response
• Bobwhite and songbird population response to
  concentrated delivery of habitat management in
  large (gt 15,000) focus areas
• Program FLEP, WHIP, CRP CP33
• Practices
• Thinning and prescribed burning in pine forests
• Upland habitat buffers

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Northern Bobwhite Response to Environmental
Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) Practices in
the High Plains Ecoregion of Texas

• Texas
• Bobwhite population response
• Programs EQIP
• Practices
• Prescribed grazing
• Brush management

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Use of Human Dimensions Information as a Tool for
Selecting Large-Scale Quail Restoration Areas

• Missouri
• Determine land owner attitudes, knowledge, and
  ability regarding bobwhite conservation
• Spatial inventory of landowner willingness and
  ability
• Landowner attitudes toward cooperative ventures
• Optimize conservation practice delivery

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Benefits of a Buffer-Based Conservation
Management System for Northern Bobwhite and
Grassland Songbirds in an Intensive Production
Agriculture Landscape in the Lower Mississippi
Alluvial Valley

• Mississippi
• Response
• grassland songbird density and reproductive
  success
• Landscape-level bobwhite habitat suitability
• Programs WHIP, EQIP, CRP CP33
• Practices upland habitat buffers
• Effects of strip width (30 180) and landscape
  composition

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Conservation Practices to Promote Quality Early
Successional Wildlife Habitat

• Tennessee
• Response bobwhite habitat suitability
• Vegetation structure and composition
• Seed production
• Invertebrate abundance
• Soil loss
• Programs CRP midcontract management - NWSG and
  CSG
• Practices
• Seasonal disking
• Seasonal burning
• Herbicides
• Bushhogging

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Maximizing the Impact of Field Borders for Quail
and Early-succession Songbirds Whats the Best
Design for Implementation?

• North Carolina
• Response bobwhite and songbird abundance and
  reproductive success
• Programs CRP CP33
• Practices
• Upland habitat buffers
• Effects of shape and landscape context

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Assessing Bobwhite Response to EQIP
Implementation in the Rolling Plains of Texas

• Texas
• Response Bobwhite populations
• Program EQIP
• Practices
• Mechanical and chemical brush control

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Responses of Northern Bobwhite, Vegetation and
Invertebrates to Three Methods of Renovating
Monotypic CRP Grasslands in Southcentral Illinois

• Illinois
• Response vegetation structure and composition,
  invertebrate abundance, bobwhite brood habitat
  quality
• Program CRP
• Practices
• mid-contract management practices
• Strip-disking
• Strip herbicide
• Legume interseeding

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Bobwhite Response to NBCI-Based Habitat
Prescriptions on Rangelands

• Florida
• Response bobwhite and songbird abundance and
  reproductive success in relation to management
  intensity ( of landscape)
• Program EQIP WHIP
• Practices
• Prescribed burning
• Roller drum chopping
• Herbicide conversion of exotics

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Evaluation of Four Conservation Management
Practices for Northern Bobwhites and Grassland
Songbirds

• South Carolina
• Response Vegetation structure in relation to
  time since disturbance
• Programs CRP, WHIP
• Practices
• Disking
• Prescribed burning
• Upland habitat buffers
• Perennial shrub vegetation
• NWSG

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Evaluation of the USDA Farm Bill Conservation
Practices for Wildlife

• South Carolina
• Response bobwhite and songbird abundance,
  vegetation structure, landowner willingness to
  adopt
• Program WHIP, CRP
• Practices filter strips, upland habitat
  buffers, hedgerow planting, NWSG, riparian forest
  buffers

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Summary

• Early successional habitats are an important
  natural component of functioning ecosystems
• Disturbance dependent
• In national decline
• Agricultural systems and producers are well
  positioned to create and maintain
• Federal farm programs provide excellent vehicle
• Technology and informational products to help you
  help producers are being produced