Population Ecology of the Bobwhite

This book presents the results and conclusions of the longest continuous study ever undertaken for a local North American game bird population.Since 1950 abundance has been determined seasonally by direct count, nesting ecology by field searches and observation, and hunting pressure and harvest by field interviews. Land use and weather conditions also have been recorded. The period of the study saw considerable change in regional land use and included several of the most severe winters in recorded weather history.Continuing harvest of the study population did not have a progressively depressing effect on standing densities; rather it held breeding stock somewhat below K at a more productive point on the growth curve. Roseberry and Klimstra report that there was clear evidence of an 8 to 10-year cycle within the study population. They found after examining a number of cycle theories that a close temporal relationship existed between their bobwhite data and the nodal lunar cycle described by Archibald (1977).Sound field techniques, long-term data acquisition, and appropriate mathematical and statistical treatment of the data combine to provide a significant contribution to what is known of not only bobwhite but basic population ecology."