Webless Migratory Game Bird Program - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

component of the project by this coming fall.
In addition, I have conducted preliminary analyses to
look at the relationship between weather and annual
recruitment. These indicate a strong role for summer
conditions in predicting reproductive output (Fig. 2).
However, these were based on a relatively short
sampling period (3 years) and ignored spatial issues.
Once wing data and weather covariates are available
for 2012, I will begin to integrate this component
into the estimated recruitment model.
Figure 2. Preliminary results suggest summer conditions
can affect mourning dove recruitment at the regional
level. This figure shows the relationship between
residuals for the annual proportion of hatch year wings in
the mail survey sample and the residual for the annual dry
heat index for 2007 to 2009. Each point represents values
for a single year and region combination (regions were
southeast, south-central, southwest, northeast, northcentral,
and northwest). Future work to explore these
patterns will incorporate additional years of data and a
more robust methodology to estimate effects
Acknowledgements
Special thanks goes to the efforts of all the state
agencies involved in the initial pilot recruitment
monitoring effort and the current monitoring effort.
Dave Otis, John Schulz, Mark Seamans, Paul
Padding, Ken Richkus, Khristi Wilkins, Robert
Raftovich, and Philip Dixon have all provided
significant technical and logistic support.
Literature Cited
Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies’
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Force (AFWA). 2008. Priority information
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funding strategy. Report by D.J. Case &
Associates, 11 pp.
Miller, D.A. 2009. Reproductive ecology of the
mourning large-scale patterns in recruitment,
breeding endocrinology, and developmental
plasticity. Iowa State Univeristy, PhD
dissertation.
Miller, D.A., and D.L. Otis. 2010. Calibrating
recruitment estimates for mourning doves from
harvest age ratios. Journal of Wildlife
Management 74:1070-1079.
Otis, D.L. 2010. Summary of Current Relevant
Information and Suggestions for Development
of Population Models for Use in Mourning Dove
Harvest Management. Unpublished report.
Runge, M.C., F.A. Johnson, J.A. Dubovsky, W.L.
Kendall, J. Lawrence, and J. Gammonley. 2002.
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management of mid-continent mallards. U.S
Fish and Wildlife Service, Division of Migratory
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U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Pacific, Central,
Mississippi, and Atlantic Flyway Councils
(USFWS). 2003. Mourning dove national
strategic harvest management plan. National
Mourning Dove Planning Committee. 12pp.
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