Evaluation of factors affecting greater prairie‐chicken nest and brood survival

Greater prairie‐chickens Tympanuchus cupido pinnatus in the Flint Hills ecoregion select recently burned grasslands for brooding and nest in areas that have been unburned for 1–3 years, suggesting the need for a mosaic of burn patches. However, it is unknown how patch area, configuration, and proximity to edges within such mosaics affect reproductive vital rates. We investigated whether nest placement relative to three edge types (burned patches, burn edges and tree cover) influences nest survival and early brood success. With a robust 11‐year nest dataset and a more limited 5‐year brood dataset, we modeled survival and success as a function of time since fire and proximity to edges. We used a multi‐step model‐building approach to account for known sources of variation in nest survival (i.e. temporal variables, female characteristics, drought, and weather) before examining relationships with TSF and proximity to edges. As expected, the majority of nests were located in patches 1–2 years since burn, but broods used recently burned patches disproportionately to availability, with 71% of broods traveling to a recent burn within a week of hatching. We found weak evidence that proximity to edges affected nest survival, but not 14‐day brood success. Nest survival was primarily affected by weather and time of season. Our findings suggest that proximity to disturbance‐driven edges and tree cover may contribute to nest survival rate, but were less important than other factors, at least in our landscape context.