AOU meeting abstracts (August 8-11, Wyoming)

An excerpt from the abstracts available here:

212 Hill, Mennill, Rolek, Ligon, Hill, Swiston, Odom & Hicks
Further evidence suggesting that Ivory-billed Woodpeckers exist in Florida. GEOFFREY E. HILL, Dept. Biol. Sci., Auburn Univ., Auburn, AL, DANIEL J. MENNILL, Dept. Biol., Univ. Windsor, Windsor, ON, BRIAN R. ROLEK, RUSTY LIGON, JAMES R. HILL, III, Auburn Univ., KYLE A. SWISTON, KARAN ODOM, Univ. Windsor, and TYLER L. HICKS, Western State Coll., Gunnison, CO.
From Nov 2006 through May 2007 we searched for Ivory-billed Woodpeckers along the Choctawhatchee River in nw. Florida. A team of 13 searchers lived in 2 camps about 15 km apart and intensively searched about 31 km of forested wetlands. Four additional biologists deployed remote listening stations and set and watched the images from 24 remote cameras. This search effort yielded 2 convincing sightings of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers and numerous recordings of putative double knocks and putative kent calls (finally tallies are not available as this abstract is submitted). We will also present a video taken in May 2006 of a bird that has plumage features consistent with Ivory-billed Woodpecker.
As this abstract is being prepared, we do not have definitive evidence for the existence of Ivory-billed
Woodpeckers in Florida.

213 Rolek, Ligon, Hill & Mennill
A comparison of large woodpecker cavity morphology in the Choctawhatchee River bottomlands and other southern forests. BRIAN W ROLEK, RUSSELL LIGON, GEOFFREY HILL, Dept. Biol., Auburn Univ., Auburn, AL, and DANIEL J. MENNILL, Dept. Biol. Univ. Windsor, Windsor, ON.
The existence of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in the forested wetlands along the Choctawhatchee River is supported by sight records, sound recordings, bark scaling, and large cavities reported to be larger than the cavities excavated by Pileated Woodpeckers. The assertion that cavities in this area are larger than expected in forest in the se. U.S. is supported by scant data. We compared the morphology and size of cavities measured near the Choctawhatchee River to cavities measured in Alabama and Georgia. We found that cavities measured along the Choctawhatchee River average larger in entrance height and width and have a greater maximum size. These findings support the claims that Ivory-billed Woodpeckers reside within the floodplain of the Choctawhatchee River.

214 Noel & Bednarz
Breeding ecology of the Pileated Woodpecker in eastern Arkansas. BRANDON L. NOEL and JAMES C. BEDNARZ, Dept. Biol. Sci., Arkansas State Univ., State University, AR.
One significant obstacle to the recovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker (IBWO) is the lack of information about this species biology and ecology in the bottomland hardwood forests and swamps of eastern Arkansas, Florida, and elsewhere in the se. U.S. Given the dire conservation situation of this species, and extreme void in our knowledge of its biology and ecology, we have begun an intensive 4-yr study on the foraging and breeding ecology of the Pileated Woodpecker (PIWO) in the Big Woods area to provide reliable data on large woodpecker ecology in the bottomland habitats of eastern Arkansas that can be used to make management decisions and possibly prevent the extinction of the IBWO. Contrary to historical observations at the Singer Tract, where IBWOs used higher bottoms associated with sweetgum and oak tree species, the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology recently recorded IBWOs in the lower bottomland habitats. Therefore, we are comparing habitat use ecology of PIWOs in both the cypress-tupelo swamps (low bottoms) versus the sweetgum-oak hardwood (high bottoms) bottomland areas. Specifically, we are comparing home-range sizes, feeding rates at nests, reproductive success, and survival. Preliminary results will be presented.

215 Cooper, Mordecai, Conroy, Peterson, Moore & Mattsson
Design and implementation of a region-wide search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker with the objective of estimating occupancy and related parameters. ROBERT J. COOPER, RUA S. MORDECAI, Univ. Georgia, Athens, GA, MICHAEL J. CONROY, JAMES T. PETERSON, USGS Georgia Coop. Fish &
Wildl. Res. Unit and Univ. Georgia, CLINTON T. MOORE, Patuxent Wildl. Res. Center, Univ. Georgia, and BRADY J. MATTSSON, Univ. Georgia.
Until recently, the search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker mostly focused on relatively few areas that are believed to have the greatest probability of containing the bird (best areas). A major problem associated with only searching the best areas is that, because of a lack of randomization, it is not possible to build predictive habitat and population models, or learn in a systematic, repeatable way from the data collected how to improve the search. We describe a survey design, which was implemented in 2006 - 2007, for the search effort that will (1) allow estimation of occupancy, use, and detection probability for habitats at multiple spatial scales within the species* former range, and (2) assess relationships between occupancy, use and habitat characteristics at those scales. The design features randomization of search locations weighted by prior belief of their suitability and results from prior searches, such that most but not all effort is still expended in the best locations. Data are being entered into a web-accessible central database that will allow frequent model updating in an adaptive framework. We view this approach as a template for developing occupancy-based surveys of other rare species.