Following catastrophic exploitation throughout the North Atlantic, breeding seabird populations have begun to recover thanks to regulatory protection and restoration and management efforts. As bird populations increase, new challenges emerge, including overgrowth of vegetation that limits the open nesting habitat favored by most tern species. Though managers have used a variety of measures to reduce vegetation cover, these techniques have rarely been quantified or compared experimentally. During the summers of 2009 and 2010, I applied two different techniques, controlled burning and artificial weed barriers (muslin fabric and artificial turf) to experimental plots on Eastern Egg Rock and Outer Green Island, near-shore seabird nesting islands in mid-coastal Maine. I then monitored vegetation regrowth and use by nesting terns to assess the effectiveness of these techniques for opening and maintaining Common Tern nesting habitat during a full breeding season, comparing treated plots to vegetated control plots and existing tern nesting habitat. Burned areas did not remain open for the full nesting season, but regrew shortly after laying, leading to near-complete nest failure in these plots. Tern nest and fledging success was similar in weed barrier (1.37 chicks/pair) and untreated tern nesting habitat (1.38 chicks/pair) plots. Replacement of existing vegetation, tested at a limited scale on Outer Green Island, did not succeed. These three techniques represent only a small fraction of vegetation management techniques used throughout the North Atlantic region. Through literature review and consultation with North Atlantic colony managers, I collected information on vegetation management on 34 tern nesting islands between 33 and 55° N latitude and developed a summary of different vegetation control techniques used. I identified 14 technique types suitable for use in nesting colonies: i.e., that can be applied before and after (but not during) the nesting period of May-July, that do not cause destructive impacts to the surrounding ecosystem, and that involve materials and labor that can be transported to inaccessible offshore islands. Of these techniques, 8 created usable tern nesting habitat for a full breeding season, and the most successful techniques required constructing habitat over existing vegetation. The success of different methods depended heavily on the plant communities and soil types involved. In general, vegetation management options were more limited and less successful for elevated, rocky islands than for low, sandy islands. Often, techniques that successfully removed one species or group of species (i.e., perennial grasses) failed due to rapid colonization by other species (i.e., herbaceous annuals). This review of past and ongoing vegetation management techniques used on seabird nesting islands, including their costs, methods for application, and effectiveness, provides seabird managers a reference when evaluating current and future vegetation management programs.

Ever since the design and manufacture of products moved from the craftsman era where individual craftsman designed and manufactured the entire product, to the mass production era, where skilled laborers were crafting interchangeable parts or in some cases single features on interchangeable parts, variation in assemblies has been a major concern to designers, manufacturers, and in a more subtle way, customers. Variation, in the end, affects quality, performance and the cost of products. One particular type of design that is particularly robust to variation is an exactly constrained design. Several researchers have recently explored the topic of exact constraint design. An exactly constrained design is one in which each degree of freedom is constrained by a single constraint until the desired degrees of freedom for the design is attained. One attractive advantage of exactly constrained designs is that they are robust to variation. However, exactly constrained designs often require nesting forces to maintain the configuration of the design. This research develops a method for designing features that will supply robust nesting forces such that the advantages of the exactly constrained design are preserved. The method developed in this work takes advantage of a proven method for tolerance analysis and enhances this method to include the analysis of these features that supply nesting forces. Along with the enhancement, principles are developed that aid this analysis. All the examples provided in this work are verified using comparisons to Monte Carlo simulations. The comparisons show good results, typically less than 2% difference from the Monte Carlo simulations, verifying that this method accurately predicts variation and allows for the robust design of features that supply the nesting forces in exactly constrained assemblies.

Manuscript No. 1 Translocations of greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) have been attempted in 7 states and one Canadian province with very little success. To recover a small remnant population and test the efficacy of sage-grouse translocations, we captured and transported 137 adult female sage-grouse from 2 source populations to a release site in Strawberry Valley, Utah during March-April 2003-2005. The resident population of sage-grouse in Strawberry Valley was approximately 150 breeding birds prior to the release. We radiomarked each female and documented survival, movements, reproductive effort, flocking with resident grouse, and lek attendance. We used Program MARK to calculate annual survival of translocated females in the first year after release, which averaged 0.60 (95% CI = 0.515-0.681). Movements of translocated females were within current and historic sage-grouse habitat in Strawberry Valley, and we detected no grouse outside of the study area. Nesting propensity for first (newly translocated) and second (surviving) year females was 39% and 73%, respectively. Observed nest success of all translocated females during the study was 67%. By the end of their first year in Strawberry Valley, 100% of the living translocated sage-grouse were in flocks with resident sage-grouse. The translocated grouse attended the same lek as the birds with which they were grouped. In 2006, the peak male count for the only remaining active lek in Strawberry Valley was almost 4 times (135 M) the 6-year pretranslocation (1998 − 2003) average peak attendance of 36 males (range 24 – 50 M). Translocations can be an effective management tool to increase small populations of greater sage-grouse when conducted during the breeding season and before target populations have been extirpated. Manuscript No. 2 Nesting habitat of resident greater sage-grouse in extant populations across the species range has been thoroughly described in the literature, yet very little is known about the use of nesting habitat by translocated sage-grouse. In order to better understand nesting habitat selection by translocated sage-grouse in a new environment, we trapped grouse during the spring on and near leks of source populations. We placed each female in a cardboard box and translocated them overnight to the Strawberry Valley. Each female was fitted with a radio-transmitter and released near the lek where males were actively strutting. We monitored grouse for nesting activity. We documented nesting attempts, nest success, clutch size and embryo viability. We recorded data on habitat variables associated with nest sites and paired-random sites. We used logistic regression and an a priori information theoretic approach for modeling nest versus paired-random sites and successful versus unsuccessful nest sites. Our data suggested that crown area of the nest shrub and percent grass cover were the two variables that discriminated between nest and paired-random sites. Females that nested successfully selected sites with more total shrub canopy cover, intermediate size shrub crown area, a normal distribution of aspects, and with steeper slopes than unsuccessful nests. Translocated females selected suitable nesting habitat after being moved from source populations with differing habitats. Manuscript No. 3 Equivalence testing in the field of wildlife ecology has been underutilized. Mistakenly, many researchers have concluded that two groups are the same based on failure to reject a null hypothesis of no difference. We used equivalence testing to provide preliminary evidence that resident and translocated bird movements were similar. Translocations are becoming more prominent in the field of conservation biology as a wildlife management tool. We translocated greater sage grouse into a fragmented habitat in order to conserve the metapopulation. We placed radio-transmitters on resident and translocated female greater sage grouse and used the distance moved from the release site or lek as a measure of translocation success and/or site fidelity. If translocated birds did not show site fidelity, the translocations would be judged a failure. The distributions of resident and translocated sage grouse movements for both summer and winter seasons were significantly different, primarily due to differences in the proportions of specific habitat fragments used. Equivalence tests showed that site fidelity was statistically equivalent for translocated and resident grouse,when defined as a difference of ≤3 km, both in summer and winter. In particular, translocated females traveled no farther from the release site than resident females. Equivalence testing was the statistical tool used to determine equivalence of resident and translocated sage grouse movements and thus judge preliminary translocation success.

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<p>A clear picture describing cognitive change in pregnant women has yet to emerge. Recent work investigating pregnancy-induced cognition in women focuses on memory deficits, in contrast to the cognitive advantage and neural plasticity described in the nonhuman literature. The following thesis reviews the literature investigating pregnancy-induced cognitive change, and then reports three empirical studies investigating cognition in pregnant and postpartum women. I hypothesized that, given the high stakes associated with pregnancy and the postpartum period, adaptive mechanisms designed to keep the mother safe exist in the cognitive domain, in much the same way that Nausea and Vomiting in Pregnancy is now believed to buffer the mother and fetus from harm. The results of a meta-analysis and a longitudinal study comparing cognitive performance in pregnant and non-pregnant women suggest that there are cognitive costs associated with becoming a mother, in both pregnancy and the postpartum period. Recent research suggests that pregnant women possess an advantage in processing social stimuli: I report that pregnant women show facilitated recognition of faces. Finally, I examined nesting, and developed a questionnaire that tracked women through pregnancy and into the postpartum period, comparing non-pregnant women at similar time points. I report that nesting peaks in the third trimester, and involves space preparation and social withdrawal. Reproductive state affects cognition in ways that are distinct, and perhaps specialized, including a deficit in some areas (processing speed), and a cognitive advantage in others (face recognition), some of which may serve a protective function.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Group living is a widespread social system among animals. Within these groups, decisions on interactions between individuals can be facilitated through knowledge about individual identity and kinship. Individual identity allows for the recognition of individuals from past interactions and thus, information on likelihood of reciprocity and group-membership can be gained. The benefit for cooperative interactions, specifically, increases with the level of relatedness between the helper and the recipient. Thus, knowing who is kin, is an essential ability among group-living species and remembering individual identity helps to maintain long-term relationships and inform future decisions. Kin recognition can be facilitated through temporal and spatial overlap (i.e. familiarity) or through phenotypic-templates (i.e. phenotype matching). The goal of this thesis was to explore recognition in the joint-nesting pūkeko (Porphyrio melanotus melanotus). For the first portion of this thesis (Chapter II), I tested for evidence of phenotype matching in pūkeko using a cross-fostering experiment. Comparing survival and growth between fostered and non-fostered offspring, I provide evidence that pūkeko do not use phenotype matching as their mechanism for kin recognition. In Chapter III, I show that pūkeko chick distress calls may have an individual and group signature. I found variation in the vocal parameters between individual chicks and social groups. I also tested for response of adults towards chick distress calls of their own group. Using a playback-choice experiment, I report a biased response of adult pūkeko towards the distress call of their own group's chicks rather than the call of a distressed chick from a foreign chick. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / Kin recognition is an essential ability for social species. Knowing whom is kin can help inform decisions on cooperation and conflict. I explored whether the joint-nesting pūkeko use familiarity or phenotype matching to recognise cross-fostered offspring. I experimented to determine if adult pūkeko can recognise the distress vocalizations of chicks in their group. I found no evidence that pūkeko use phenotypic templates to recognise cross-fostered chicks as non-kin. However, adult pūkeko showed a bias in response towards the distress calls of their own versus unfamiliar chicks. Individual chick distress calls, while variable from day-to-day, show group-specific similarities.

Reptiles are the vertebrate taxon with the highest percentage of at-risk species in Canada, many of which exist at the northern limit of their species’ home range in Ontario. Numerous reptiles are found in the Georgian Bay area; however, factors limiting their distribution in Ontario are poorly understood. It is likely that the thermal and hydrological conditions of a reptile’s critical habitat are contributing factors. Specifically, peatlands serve as ideal hibernacula for the threatened Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake (Sistrurus catenatus) while moss cushions may provide freshwater turtles, including the threatened Blanding’s Turtle (Emydoidea blandingii) and endangered Spotted Turtle (Clemmys guttata), with nesting opportunities on open rock barrens. Although different in their functional purpose at opposite life stages for two separate orders of reptiles, these ecosystems provide suitable conditions to meet the physiological needs of the reptiles utilizing them. This analysis characterizes the thermal and hydrological conditions of moss-dominated ecosystems from a reptile species-at-risk perspective. The interaction between the water table and the frost line is important when assessing the winter survival of Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnakes hibernating in peatland hummocks. Larger hummocks are more ideal as they have a lower chance of becoming flooded in the winter while still providing protection from the advancing frost line. Ideally, hummocks that are 30-35 cm tall provide the greatest chance of survival when snakes hibernate 20-25 cm below the surface. Subsurface temperatures in relation to snow depth, as it is influenced by tree stand characteristics, was also assessed. This resulted in the conclusion that the presence, absence, timing, and frequency of freeze and thaw events is likely more important than snow depth when it comes to winter survival. Similar to rattlesnake hibernacula, turtle nests can be inundated for extended periods of time or exposed to extreme temperatures which reduces their chance of survival. The water storage dynamics of 22 hillslope and 12 hilltop moss cushions along with the temperature dynamics at nine locations were characterized. Although it was determined hilltop locations had greater water storage capabilities, continuously monitored moss cushions responded very quickly to rainfall events whereby sites were inundated for less than 12 hours. Average subsurface temperatures decreased with depth as did temperature fluctuations, both of which were positively correlated but not significantly affected by canopy openness. However, due to their tendency to grow on flat surfaces, not all moss cushions are suitable nesting sites. Moreover, temperatures that ensure proper development and equal ratios of male-to-female turtles were not achieved suggesting that this is a potential factor limiting the northern distribution of turtles in Ontario. In order to properly asses the vulnerability of these populations to threats including habitat loss and climate change, the habitat requirements of different species at critical life stages needs to be understood. Therefore, conservationists can use this study to implement mitigation strategies that consider impacts on the thermal and hydrological dynamics within reptile habitat. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

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