Feeding sites characteristics of the Northern shoveler Spatula clypeata in prenuptial stopover ...

• Main Authors: Moreau, Axelle, Rousseau, Clément, Bocher, Pierrick, Dupuy, Christine, Farau, Sébastien
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2022
• Subjects: FOS Animal and dairy science; Northern shoveler; Spatula clypeata; freshwater invertebrates; prenuptial migration; food resources; Northern Shoveler; Shoveler
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.kh189328n; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.kh189328n

Dabbling ducks choose a multitude of habitats throughout their life cycle. This choice depends on the abundance, diversity, and accessibility of food resources. Wetlands such as the Marais breton and Marais poitevin (Atlantic coast, France) are common habitats for several Anatidae, especially during their prenuptial migration. However, studies on the food ecology of Anatidae at stopover sites are limited. Therefore, this study focused on the Northern shoveler Spatula clypeata, a species that regularly inhabits the two marshes during the breeding and migration periods and is highly dependent on freshwater invertebrates as the food resource because of its bill morphology. Fifteen Northern shoveler were equipped with a GPS/GSM tag and monitored during their prenuptial migration. The study objectives were to understand the strategies used by the Northern shoveler to select the foraging sites and describe the characteristics of these sites (such as freshwater invertebrates’ abundance and diversity and the habitat ... : Northern shoveler capture and tagging This study was conducted on two large wetlands on the French Atlantic coast in Vendée: the MB (N2000 FR5212009 and Ramsar 2283) and the MP (N2000 FR5200659). During the prenuptial migration period, shovelers were captured using cage traps and live male or female shovelers as decoys. A camera (NATURACAM – STDX2) was positioned near each trap to monitor the presence of birds in the traps, which were kept every day from March 01 to March 17, 2020, and from March 01 to April 10, 2021. Overall, 15 shovelers were caught and equipped with a GPS-GSM tag (Ornitela, OrniTrack-E10, solar-powered GPS-GSM); these included 4 females (F) and 11 males (M) and 8 juveniles (less than two years old) and 7 adults (more than two years old). Eight individuals were caught in the MB and 7 in the MP. The equipment (GPS-GSM tag, harness, and metal tag) weighed less than 3% of the body mass. The shovelers were ethically captured and handled (Authorization from Ministry of Ecological Transition by ...