1. Habitat Use of Autumn Migrating Sora in the Mississippi Flyway
AR Coop Unit / Nick Seeger
Auriel M.V. Fournier – Arkansas Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit – University of Arkansas
Doreen C. Mengel – Resource Science Division – Missouri Department of Conservation
David G. Krementz – USGS Arkansas Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit – University of Arkansas
@RallidaeRule

2. Wetland Management Managing our remaining wetlands is vital
We assume waterfowl management provides for other species
Need to understand the tradeoffs for other wetland obligate species
Objective – Understand density and selection of habitat by autumn migrating rails in the Mississippi Flyway.

3. Rails Sora (Porzana carolina)
Migratory Shore and Upland Game Bird Support Task Force for Rails and Snipe Priority Information Need
How does habitat affect survival?
Previous work looked at wetland and point level relationships

5. Surveying New method based off Perkins et al 2009 ATV flushing surveys
Transect Based – Distance Sampling
Surveying
Talk about our survey methods, I’m not going to touch on the veg methods since I’m not discussing those results.
AR Coop Unit / Nick Seeger

6. Habitat Collection 20 random points per impoundment
20 sora points per impoundment
Percent cover in 25 m circle
Water depth at 5 points
Covariates of Interest
Water Depth
Annual Moist Soil Vegetation
Interspersion

7. N = 1895

8. Analysis Generalized Hierarchical Distance Sampling Models
Package ‘unmarked’ in R
gdistsamp function
Only uses available data
‘impoundment level’ relationships
Resource Selection
Package ‘ResourceSelection’ in R
Compares used vs available data
‘point level’ relationships

12. Implications Rails migrate earlier than waterfowl
Current management may not provide what Sora need

13. Ongoing Work
State wide wetland management experiment to look at the impact of early flooding on rails and waterfowl
Virginia and Yellow Rail Work
Stable Isotopes

14. Thank You!
Managers:
Craig Crisler, Ron Bell, Darrin Welchert, Chris Freeman, Kenny Ackley, Steve Whitson, Gary Calvert, Ryan Kelly, Mike Flaspohler, Jason Wilson, Mick Hanan, Matt Bowyer, Keith Cordell, Kevin Brunke, Brad Pendley
Technicians:
Matt Boone, Leslie Brinkman, Dan Datlof, Jon Fournier, Justin Lehman, Nick Seeger, Hailee Pasivich
Funding:
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Missouri Department of Conservation
Arkansas Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
University of Arkansas DDF Program
Arkansas Audubon Society Trust

15. Presentation : tinyurl.com/h3b8jsd
Questions?
aurielfournier.github.io
@RallidaeRule
#MORails
Presentation : tinyurl.com/h3b8jsd