Missouri River Piping Plovers
Background and Rationale
The Missouri River is the longest river in the United States (>4,000 km). In pristine times, the river flowed unfettered from its source to its confluence with the Mississippi river at St. Louis. Now, much of the river is inundated by impoundments which changed its character and ecology substantially. Piping plovers nest on sandbars laid down by high river flows. Our work is aimed at understanding the effects on piping plovers of human-caused changes to the Missouri River Ecosystem. We started our work on the Missouri River in 2000 with Danielle Le Fer’s Ph.D. work. Our first goal was to determine whether releasing very cold water from the bottom of the Garrison Dam (hypolimnetic release) was reducing piping plover food supply. In 2005 Dan Catlin began evaluating the efficacy of engineer-constructed sandbar habitat for nesting piping plovers. In 2007, Joy Felio began studying patterns of sandbar colonization by piping plovers.
Project People
Joy Felio |  |
Dan Catlin |
 |
Danielle LeFer Jim Fraser Sarah Karpanty Cooperator |
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Project Photos
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Project Videos
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Project Findings
Key findings (LeFer, Fraser and Kruse, 2008a)
- Piping plover chicks gained weight more rapidly in the alkali wetlands than on epilimnetic and hypolimnetic river reaches.
- Invertebrate numbers and biomass were higher in alkalai wetlands and on the epilimnetic reach, but chick survival was lower on the epilimnetic reach.
- Piping plovers adapted to a variety of prey densities, and other factors, likely predation, reduced survival rates in the epilimnetic reach.
- Temporal and spatial variability in site quality indices suggests the need for a regional management strategy with different strategies at each site.
- Managers can minimize effects of local fluctuations in resource abundance and predators by ensuring protection of or creating geographically dispersed habitat.
- Foraging adult plovers selected protected shoreline (inter-sandbar channels, inlets, and back water areas) more often than expected based on availability.
- On the epilimnetic river reach, invertebrate biomass and numbers were higher along the protected shoreline than on the main channel shoreline.
- Invertebrate numbers were higher in saturated and moist habitats than in vegetated and dry habitats
- At the epilimnetic and hypolimnetic reaches, foraging Piping Plover chicks used saturated and moist habitats more than vegetated and dry habitats, based on availability.
- On the Missouri River, protected shorelines were important foraging sites for Piping Plovers during the breeding season, and sandbars with low-lying moist habitat were important to foraging chicks.
- Piping Plovers will benefit from increased availability of these habitats on managed or created sandbars on the Missouri River. On the epilimnetic river reach, invertebrate biomass and numbers were higher along the protected shoreline than on the main channel shoreline.
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Preliminary findings (Catlin, Felio and Fraser, in prep/in progress)
- Piping plovers preferred engineered sandbars to natural sandbars
- Nest success was higher on engineered than on natural sandbars
- Owl predation depressed chick survival; owl trapping by Wildlife Services improved chick survival
- After a bad year (very high density, Iow chick survival) there was substantial emigration from the population.
- Newly engineered habitat appeared to provide breeding sites for yearling plovers, with otherwise might not have been able to compete for nest sites on densely populated sandbars. (Catlin, Felio and Fraser, unpublished).
- Estimated adult survival was higher than other estimates Great Plains plovers, and average survival and natality rates for 3 years suggests a slowly increasing population.
- Plovers colonizing newly constructed sandbars experience lower levels of interspecific aggression than plovers nesting on the densely populated older engineered sandbars.
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