Quail Adaptive Niche

[Prairie Drifter]

For discussion, with all the misinformation on the reasons turkey have increased in Kansas while Quail have decreased (this is occuring over most of their overlapping ranges, not just Kansas), I thought it would be helpful to provide this mock up of their adaptive ranges. It, hopefully, will help some folks see why these two phenomenon are occurring at the same time.

 

[Miforester]

Wow, haven't seen that chart since in was in college some 25 years ago......many people don't associate animals with differnt successional stages of plant, but they go hand in hand.

 

[Prairie Drifter]

The lack of discussion on this thread, I decided to ask the wife if she understood the graph. Nope! I'm guessing she's not alone. As an explanation, each black bar with animal species on it is an adaptive niche for those species. If you compare that black bar with the plant succession progression at the bottom, it indicates what habitat stages those animals are adapted to. The circled species' (bobwhite) adaptive niche is also circled on the habitat progression at the bottom. If that's clear as mud, tell me how to make it more clear.

My inference of the difference between quail and turkey is that the turkey bar covers most of the habitats listed at the bottom. Conversely, bobwhite are limited to the habitat types from bare field into the first part of the pine forest habitat(early successional). Once that pine habitat starts to age and canopy up, bobwhite are no longer adapted to it.

Human influences have both helped and hurt bobwhite populations over time. The boom came in the early days of agriculture when field size was small, crop types were many, and farm living dealt with many of their predators and succession as well. We're now seeing declines that are relatable to field size, lack of diversity, land overuse, and human inattention of things that would address their predation and succession. I'll shut up now

 

[SetterNut]

Troy, the graph is pretty clear to me. The real issue for me is how do I keep a significant amount of my property in the early succession, with the least amount of cost and work. Fire is a lot easier than chain saw.

 

[Prairie Drifter]

Fire and cattle are the cheapest and easiest methods to keep the grass in the right condition. You HAVE to develop a grazing lease that achieves the conditions that you want on your property or the stockman WILL take advantage of you and overgraze your grass right out of a productive state. As for the plants that are already beyond what you want on the succession progression, the old addage-match, cow, axe, plow; leaves you an axe or it's modern equivalent to address those issues!! If you want to look long range, take care of the species that reproduce dramatically and cost you the most money first. Come back to the tamer species that tend to be better citizens. Again, you may want to evaluate them with an eye toward "raptor perch" or "coon den". and kill the proverbial 2 birds with 1 stone!