Recreational trails, human activity, and nest predation in lowlandriparian areas

摘要

In areas of human settlement, greenways and open-space land are often intended to serve recreational purposes as well as provide wildlife habitat, but the compatibility of these goals is uncertain. We examined the effect of recreational trails on the risk of nest predation and nest predator activity at four lowland riparian sites along the Front Range of Colorado. At one site on each of two streams, we placed a transect of artificial nests near a recreational trail and another transect on the opposite side of the stream, We also placed another transect of nests at a second site on each stream that was not associated with a recreational trail. In 1995, nests were baited with quail eggs; in 1996 a clay egg was also added to nests to aid us in nest predator identification. Artificial nests are not perfect surrogates for natural nests, but are useful in generating hypotheses about causes of nest failure and for detecting changes in predator assemblages.