Publications by authors named "Bram Verheijen"
Our aim was to describe shifts in autumn and winter harvest distributions of three species of dabbling ducks (blue-winged teal [], mallard [], and northern pintail []) in the Central and Mississippi flyways of North America during 1960-2019. We measured shifts in band recovery distributions corrected for changes in hunting season dates and zones by using kernel density estimators to calculate 10 distributional metrics. We then assessed interannual and intraspecific variation by comparing species-specific changes in distributional metrics for 4 months (October-January) and three geographically based subpopulations.
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- Incubation breaks are essential for nesting birds but can raise the risk of nest loss; the study focuses on how various factors influence female Lesser Prairie-chickens' nest attentiveness and survival of nests.
- Data from 87 female birds across 109 nests showed that higher nest attentiveness (from 21% to 98%) led to a 39% increase in daily nest survival, but factors like body mass and environmental conditions affected this attentiveness.
- The findings indicate that as climate changes, greater temperatures and extreme weather could negatively impact the nest success of ground-nesting birds, highlighting the need to understand their incubation behavior in changing environments.
Using 16S rRNA gene sequencing analysis, we examined the bacterial diversity and the presence of opportunistic bacterial pathogens (i.e., Campylobacter and Helicobacter) in red knot (Calidris canutus; n = 40), ruddy turnstone (Arenaria interpres; n = 35), and semipalmated sandpiper (Calidris pusilla; n = 22) fecal samples collected during a migratory stopover in Delaware Bay.
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