Reproduction

The relationship between water-level fluctuations and wading bird nest numbers and nesting location is well documented, yet species-specific reproductive responses of wading birds to environmental drivers and nesting habitat type is poorly understood. Here, I compared the reproductive responses of two ecologically similar species, Snowy Egret and Tricolored Heron, to foraging conditions influenced by water management and examined the effect of nestling island type on the reproductive success of three wading bird species. Reproductive responses to foraging conditions were broadly similar between Snowy Egrets and Tricolored Herons, however this study revealed specific-specific differences that could lead to different population dynamics in response to management over the long-term. I also found that these two species had lower productivity at spoil islands than marsh colonies, whereas Great Egret productivity did not vary by colony type. This study demonstrates the importance of establishing species-species relationships between productivity and environmental conditions

Few studies on marine turtles focus on the variation in reproductive performance of individual females. I use a long-term nesting data set (1986 – 2018) of individual loggerheads including information on 1,854 individuals, of which 853 were seen nesting multiple times. During this time, emergence success has declined while the number of females nesting, and the number of nests deposited has increased. Declining emergence success can be linked to an increase in predation in most recent years; however, this does not fully explain the decline in emergence success over all years. Females were found to vary in productivity. Successful females were larger and deposited more eggs in nests. This study shows that an increasing in nesting numbers does not mean that productivity is increasing proportionally and that recovery efforts are uniformly successful. This study is also a powerful tool for understanding the reproductive strategies of individual female loggerheads.