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Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references (leaves 89-91). / A geometric model using idealized prey behaviors in reaction to wading bird disturbances was developed to hypothesize how wading bird foraging strategy might most efficiently counter those behaviors. The model suggests that for prey responding to wading bird disturbances with flight response distance strongly negatively correlated to their distance from the point of disturbance, wading birds could employ disturbance facilitated social foraging strategy, thereby increasing individual foraging efficiency and selecting for social foraging. In controlled studies of the reactive behaviors of two primary prey species seen to be taken at disparate rates by solitary and socially foraging herons, schooling Shiner Surfperch exhibited behaviors favoring social foraging in herons, while Staghorn Sculpins exhibited no correlation in their flight response distances relative to their proximity to the disturbance, and seemed unlikely to be more efficiently utilized by socially foraging wading birds.

Birds belonging to the orders Ciconiiformes and Phoenicopteriformes are common inmates of zoological gardens. There are 12 species of the order Ciconiiformes and 1 species of the order Phoenicopteriformes bred in the Ohrada Zoo. All these species bred in the zoo are found in the Old World chiefly. The successful breeding of mentioned species depends on detailed knowledge of their biology and on providing appropriate breeding conditions. This thesis is an effort for complete analysis of the history and the present of breeding mentioned species in the Ohrada Zoo. The main aim of this thesis was to evaluate the success of nesting of birds mentioned orders in relation to breeding conditions in the zoo according to all available data processing; and to evaluate the success of nesting season of the year 2012 according to watching nesting of the birds in mentioned year. The own watching was carried out since 9th April to 30th June 2012. There are 6 species in this zoo which breed successfully regularly: the Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis), the Little Egret (Egretta garzetta), the Black-crown Night-heron (Nycticorax nycticorax), the Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus), the Eurasian Spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia) and the Greater Flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber roseus). One species ? the Black Stork (Ciconia nigra) bred for the very first time in this zoo in 2012. Especially successful is the Greater Flamingo breeding in the Ohrada Zoo. The Eurasian Spoonbill, The Black-crown Night-heron, the Glossy Ibis and the Cattle Egret breeding is successful in relation to breeding conditions in this zoo, too. The nesting season of the year 2012 was exceptionally successful for the Cattle Egrets, the Eurasian Spoonbills and the Glossy Ibises, on the contrary this nesting season was not very successful for the Little Egrets.

Anthropogenic impacts, such as habitat destruction and spread of exotic species, are contributing to the sixth major extinction event in Earth’s history. To develop effective management and conservation plans, it is important to understand the ecological drivers of at-risk populations, assess the ability of a population to adapt to environmental change, and develop research methods for long-term ecosystem monitoring. I used wading birds nesting in the Florida Everglades, USA as a model system to address the challenges of managing and monitoring populations within an ecosystem greatly impacted by anthropogenic activities. Specifically, my project investigated 1) the prey selection of wading bird species, and the role of prey and foraging habitat availability on annual nesting numbers, 2) the ability of using diet change to predict species adaptability to a rapidly changing environment, and 3) the use of sensory data to provide low-cost, long-term monitoring of dynamic wetlands. I found that tricolored herons, snowy egrets, and little blue herons consumed marsh fish larger than those generally available across the landscape. Additionally, number of nests initiated by tricolored herons, snowy egrets, and little blue herons was strongly correlated with the annual densities of large fish available within the Everglades landscape. Conversely, number of nests initiated by wood storks, great egrets, and white ibises was more correlated with the amount of foraging habitat availability across the nesting season. Wood stork diets changed considerably since the 1960’s, consisting of mainly sunfish and exotic fish as opposed to marsh fishes dominant in historical diet studies. Storks also consumed more exotic fish species than they did historically. This diet plasticity and the species’ ability to exploit anthropogenic habitats may be conducive to maintaining population viability as storks experience widespread human-induced changes to their habitat. Sensory-only data models generated complementary results to models that used site-specific field data. Additionally, sensory-only models were able to detect different responses between size classes of fish to the processes that increase their concentrations in drying pools. However, the degree to which sensory variables were able to fit species data was dependent upon the ability of sensors to measure species-specific population drivers and the scale at which sensors can measure environmental change. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on October 9, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.