We propose to explore features of black duck breeding biology and habitat use, with results that will directly and immediately benefit our existing work studying black ducks throughout the full annual…

The University of Saskatchewan received a $169,683 Project Grant award from the U.S. Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service under the Migratory Bird Joint Ventures program (CFDA 15.637). The award will fund a 3-year effort to explore black duck breeding biology and habitat use to benefit existing work on black ducks throughout their annual cycle. Key objectives include deploying 104 GPS tracking devices on black ducks, adapting machine learning algorithms to identify breeding and brood-rearing behaviors, examining habitat factors that influence black duck movements and reproduction, and integrating this data into an improved integrated population model for black ducks. The results will provide a more holistic understanding of black duck population dynamics to inform conservation planning.

We propose to explore features of black duck breeding biology and habitat use, with results that will directly and immediately benefit our existing work studying black ducks throughout the full annual cycle. We propose to hire a postdoctoral fellow to lead this work and build on the existing integrated population model (IPM) for black ducks by structurally linking demographic processes with individual processes, to test hypotheses about reproductive success and survival at multiple scales simultaneously. Our objectives are:1. Deploy 104 GPS-ACC tracking devices on black ducks during winter in the mississippi flyway, split across the next two years.2. Adapt machine learning algorithms to identify breeding propensity and brood-rearing, based on libraries developed for full-term incubation for greater confidence in all three reproductive period metrics.3. Examine available space and time scales of covariate data in the boreal forest during summer that could explain variation in black duck movements and behavior, as well as reproductive metrics.4. Integrate black duck demography with information about movements, behavior, survival and reproductive success from GPS-ACC tracking devices, for holistic hypothesis tests of population and individual processes and more informed conservation planning.5. Use the modified IPM to conduct scenario-playing about the relative contributions of survey, banding, and gpsacc data toward demographic estimates.results from this work will better inform our understanding of black duck breeding biology and drivers, with links to other parts of the annual cycle. We also anticipate that linking individual and population processes will provide a more holistic framework to test future hypotheses about black duck movements, behavior, survival and reproductive success, and allow other practitioners to customize our models for their questions.