Foraging flight distances of wintering ducks and geese: a review

• Main Authors: William P. Johnson, Paige M. Schmidt, Dustin P. Taylor
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Resilience Alliance 2014-12-01
• Series: Avian Conservation and Ecology
• Subjects: commute flights; dabbling ducks; field feeding; functional unit; geese; refuging; roost-feeding-area complex; winter movements
• Online Access: http://www.ace-eco.org/vol9/iss2/art2/

The distance covered by foraging animals, especially those that radiate from a central area when foraging, may affect ecosystem, community, and population dynamics, and has conservation and landscape planning implications for multiple taxa, including migratory waterfowl. Migrating and wintering waterfowl make regular foraging flights between roosting and feeding areas that can greatly impact energetic resources within the foraging zone near roost sites. We reviewed published studies and gray literature for one-way foraging flight distances (FFDs) of migrating and wintering dabbling ducks and geese. Thirty reviewed studies reported FFDs and several reported values for multiple species or locations. We obtained FFD values for migration (n = 7) and winter (n = 70). We evaluated the effects of body mass, guild, i.e., dabbling duck or goose, and location, i.e., Nearctic or Palearctic, on FFDs. We used the second-order Akaike's Information Criterion for model selection. We found support for effects of location and guild on FFDs. FFDs of waterfowl wintering in the Nearctic (7.4 ± 6.7 km, mean ± SD; n = 39 values) were longer than in the Palearctic (4.2 ± 3.2 km; n = 31 values). The FFDs of geese (7.8 ± 7.2 km, mean ± SD; n = 24 values) were longer than FFDs of dabbling ducks (5.1 ± 4.4 km, mean ± SD; n = 46 values). We found mixed evidence that distance flown from the roost changed, i.e., increased or decreased, seasonally. Our results can be used to refine estimates of energetic carrying capacity around roosts and in biological and landscape planning efforts.