Date of Award
2008
Document Type
Thesis
Publication Status
Version of Record
Submission Date
October 2026
Abstract
Successful foraging by avian predators is influenced largely by prey availability. In a large-scale experiment at the Loxahatchee Impoundment Landscape Assessment project within the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, I manipulated two components of prey availability, water depth and vegetation density (submerged aquatic vegetation and emergent vegetation), and quantified the response by wading birds in terms of foraging habitat selection and foraging success. Manly's standardized selection index showed that birds preferred shallow water and intermediate vegetation densities. However, the treatments had little effect on either individual capture rate or efficiency. This was a consistent pattern seen across multiple experiments. Birds selected for certain habitat features but accrued little benefit in terms of foraging success. I hypothesize that birds selected sites with shallow water and intermediate vegetation densities because they anticipated higher prey densities, but they did not experience it here because I controlled for prey density.
Extent
ix, 68 p. : ill.
Recommended Citation
Lantz, Samantha., "effects of water depth and vegetation on wading bird foraging habitat selection and foraging succes in the Everglades" (2008). Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2000 - 2009. 1452.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_general_5/1452
Identifier
FADT2788592
Comments
by Samantha Lantz.|Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008.|Includes bibliography.|Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2008. Mode of access: World Wide Web.|by Samantha Lantz.