Element 2: Highlights

Introduction: Special History Between Waterfowl & Humans

• Waterfowl (or "wildfowl" for our friends on the other side of the pond)
• Family Anatidae
• 143 species
  • 250 subspecies
• 11 tribes

• Anatini
• dabbling ducks
• Aythini
• pochards
• Mergini
• sea ducks and sawbills
• Dendrocygnini
• whistling ducks
• Tadornini
• sheldgeese and shelducks
• Oxyurini
• Stiff-tailed ducks 
• Cairinini
•  perching ducks
• Anseranatini
• magpie goose
• Strictonettini   
• freckled ducks
• Trachyerini
• steamer ducks
• Anserini 
• swans and geese 

• Waterfowl are a "way of life"
• Tax dollars are allocated toward management
  
• billions
• hunting!
• Old tradition very much alive today 
• Entire college courses dedicated to it
• North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP)

•  Based of conserving waterfowl and their habitat
• 3 overarching goals
• Abundant and resilient waterfowl populations to support hunting and other uses without imperiling habitat
• Wetlands and related habitats sufficient to sustain waterfowl populations at desired levels, while providing places to recreate and ecological services that benefit society
• Growing numbers of waterfowl hunters, other conservationists and citizens who enjoy and actively support waterfowl and wetland conservation 

• Wetlands
• Critical waterfowl habitat
• Other waterfowl habitat
• Rivers, bays, lakes, marshes, agricultural fields    

Food & Feeding Ecology 

• Adaptive Radiation
• Concept describing distribution of species with various body plans good at exploiting habitat

• Differences within and among habitats
• Dabblers vs Divers
• Morphology varies by food type
• Terrestrial veg. 
• Short, serrated bill
• Large gizzard
• Long cecae
• Aquatic veg.
• Wide, spatulate bill
• Large gizzard
• Long intestines and cecae
• Long necks 
• Tubers and rhizomes
• Robust bill, head, and neck
• Long neck
• Small gizzard and gastrointestinal tract 
• Seeds
• Dabbling
  
• Lamellae 
•  Dexterous bill
• Large gizzard 
• Inverts
• Lamellae
• Dabbling or diving
• small gizzard and gastrointestinal tract 
• Molluscs 

• Stout bill
• Strong, deep divers
• Big gizzard, small gastrointestinal tract  
• Fish  
• Serrrated bill
• Strong, fast, agile divers
• Small gizzard and gastrointestinal tract

 Breeding Biology

• Natural Selection (what's needed for it?)
• Competition
• Mutation
• Limited resources (competition for)
• Heritable traits
• Variation
• Survive long enough to breed (pass on that trait)
• Selected FOR

• Breeding and preparing to breed is a huge investment
• Capitol vs income breeding
• Capitol
•  Uses fat stores to produce eggs 
•  Income 
• Uses energy as it's acquired

• Green wave
• Refers to the growth of green vegetation as it moves in latitude
• Migratory birds are said to "follow the green wave" throughout their migrations 

Population Dynamics

• Populations
• Limitations
• Food
• Mates
• Nest sites
• Threats
• Bottlenecks
• Drift  
• Disease
  
• botulism
• fatal to waterfowl
• lives in warm anaerobic conditions 
• cholera
• infection of the small intestine
• caught by consuming contaminated food/water 
• duck plague
• caused by duck herpesvirus type 1
• causes high mortality (90%) 
• avian influenza
• caused by H5N1
• very contagious  

• Monitoring populations 

Movements & Migration

• Movement patterns

• 4 flyways
• Atlantic
• Mississippi
• Central
• Pacific  

• Migration
• Most waterfowl migrate 
• some travel thousands of miles at a time 
• Tracking movements   
• various ways to track waterfowl
• banding
•  individuals wear colored neck or leg bands with unique codes
• transmitters   
• track birds electronically with satellite, radio, or GPS 
• Molt migration
  
• Occurs after breeding
• Takes place on "molt grounds"
• Render the birds flightless
• Adults and new young of the year grow new flight feathers at the same time
• the family then migrates together  
• Eclipse plumage
• Mostly in ducks
• Males resemble females for a period of time

• Useful when the birds are flightless
• aids in camouflage while grounded    
•  Mechanisms and timing
• Cues
• Change in day length 
• Slimbridge study 
• Birds shifted migration patterns because of flood lights directed at the pond
  • left earlier than normal    
• Food availability
• Weather changes causing changes in food availability
• weather also triggers the birds to start putting on weight
• Fine line between enough fat to migrate and too much to fly at all
• WINGLOADING!    

Social & Sexual Behavior

•  Social
• Various different social behaviors are seen in waterfowl
• Allopreening
  • One individual preens another
  • beginning of courtship 
  • Triumph ceremony
  • usually after a female accepts a male's courtship displays or after a pair successfully defends or wins a fight over territory with another pair
  • Preflight signaling   
  • communicate that they want to leave an area, it will signal to its partner with a series of head shakes, wing flaps, and vocalizations
• Family behavior   

• Family group typically led by female
•   Parental care
• can include one or both parents
• if male is involved, he usually keeps a look out while the family feeds
• occurs through fledging
• sometimes longer
• Courtship and mate selection

• Males typically display to females
• Brightly colored plumage
• However, forced copulations are common
• sometimes result in death of the female 
• Females choose quality males
• Pairs form in the winter
• Some breeding occurs year-round (Laysan duck)  

• Mating systems
• Polygamy
• Single male mates with multiple female
• More common in ducks than geese  
• Monogamy
• Single mate for the season or for life
• ~90% of waterfowl species

Conservation & Management

To be discussed in elements 3, 4, and 5