Habitat Vulnerability Assessment for Wintering American Black Ducks
Habitat Vulnerability Assessment for Wintering American Black Ducks
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Projected Development Pressure Year:
 1 - 10
 11 - 21
 > 22
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SLAMM and WARMER model runs for sites leverage LEAN corrected DEM’s and accretion data from cores. In WARMER runs the initial NWI vegetation classification is reclassified based on DEM and tidal characteristics, and WARMER combines NWI subtidal and mudflat categories into a single category labeled subtidal.
WARMER 1A assumes initial freshwater marsh areas from NWI/SLAMM classification are resilient, whereas 2B uses SLAMM projections to indicate whether freshwater marsh areas susceptible to conversion.
| Profit (kg/ha) | |
|---|---|
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Subtidal |
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Mudflat |
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Low Marsh |
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High Marsh |
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Freshwater |
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Other, not habitat for ABDU |
We estimated food availability among five main wetland cover types used by overwintering American Black Ducks: subtidal, fresh water, high marsh, low marsh, and mudflat. Bioenergetics models used to inform North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP) can be simplified into two major components: energetic demand and energetic supply. Energetic demand is the estimated total cost for a duck to obtain the food (i.e foraging costs, metabolic costs, etc). Energy supply (food availability) is estimated by multiplying the foraging value of each cover type (the amount of food produced in each cover type as measured by its energetic value) by the total area of each cover type. The difference between energetic supply and energetic demand can then be used to direct conservation planning and implementation, answering key questions of “what, where, and how much” habitat is needed to achieve a target carrying capacity.