Research
Additional
information
about
Marbled Murrelets
PNW
Funded Projects
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
PNW Project Overview 2000
Understanding the Risk of Nest Predation to Marbled Murrelets in Managed Landscapes
Principal
Investigator:
Dr.
John
Marzluff, University of Washington, College of Forest Resources
Awarded: $24,890
Project
Description:
The
temperate rainforests of western North America, specifically those along
the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and northern California, provide
critical habitat for a variety of species.
They also support a major human socio-economic base of the region:
timber harvest.
Conflict between the needs of humans and the needs of wildlife are
inevitable and complex.
This project is designed to determine if increasing the amount of
even-aged, 10-80 year old forest in the landscape reduces predation in
remaining uneven aged, older forest (that is used by murrelets for
nesting).
This project is also trying to determine how the risk of predation
and likelihood of nesting overlap in forested landscapes of varying
structural complexity, proximity to human activity and fragmentation.
Project Status:
Progress
Report:
Ten
stands have been selected on the Olympic National Forest and adjacent
state and private timber lands that are of complex to very complex
structure imbedded in landscapes dominated by forests of simple structure. This research will compare the rate of predation in these new
stands to the rate of predation at existing complex and very complex
stands imbedded in landscapes dominated by forests of complex to very
complex structure on the Olympic National Forest and inside Olympic
National Park. Comparing
rates of predation between the two types of sites will allow researchers
to determine if murrelet productivity in stands with abundant nest sties
(complex and very complex forests) can be enhanced by simplifying the
structure of the surrounding landscape.
Researchers will integrate their assessment of the risk of nest predation with assessments of nest site availability and murrelet occupancy across the Olympic Peninsula. Current data allow the use of stand and landscape level measurement of vegetation, recreation sites, and human settlements from 49 locations on the north and west sides of the Olympic Peninsula. Dr. Marzluff has developed an equation relating predation to stand and landscape attributes and is currently applying that equation to the entire Olympic Peninsula using a GIS moving window procedure. A resulting map of predation risk will delineate areas that might act as sinks or sources for murrelets. This will then be combined with the likelihood of murrelet nesting. (Collaborators at the Washington Department of Natural Resources, National Park Service, Rayonier, and US Forest Service have produced preliminary models that predict murrelet occupancy.) The final product anticipated from this project is a map of the Olympic Peninsula that shows conditions where nesting is likely to be frequent and successful, frequent but unsuccessful, rare but unsuccessful, and rare and unsuccessful.