Unforeseen effects of supplementary feeding: ungulate baiting sites as hotspots for ground-nest predation.

ABSTRACT: Despite the ubiquity and magnitude of food provision to wildlife, our understanding of its ecological effects and conservation implications is very limited. Supplementary feeding of ungulates, still one of the main paradigms of game management in Europe, occurs in natural areas on an enormous scale. We investigated the indirect effects of this practice on nest predation risk in the Polish Eastern Carpathians (Bieszczady Mountains). We hypothesized that the predators attracted to ungulate baiting sites would also forage for alternative prey nearby, increasing the nest predation risk for ground-nesting birds in the vicinity. We conducted a paired experiment by placing artificial nests (N=120) in feeding and control sites (N=12) at different distances from the ungulate feeding site. We also d

SUBMITTER: Selva N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3944607 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature