DOI: 10.5061/dryad.pvmcvdnsh
title: Kentish plover capture histories

description: Global biodiversity loss is a major environmental concern. The wildlife on
 islands are particularly vulnerable to threats posed by alien predators,
 habitat loss and overexploitation. Effective conservation management of
 vulnerable species requires reliable information on vital population rates
 for all life stages and an understanding of key environmental drivers.
 However, demographic data are often not available for island populations
 before they decline or are extirpated. Here, we use Cormack-Jolly-Seber
 (CJS) models and 15 years of data for 1370 juveniles and 687 adults to
 estimate apparent survival for a genetically distinct resident population
 of Kentish plovers (Charadrius alexandrinus) on the island of Maio, Cabo
 Verde. We report two main findings. First, environmental conditions have a
 large effect on demographic performance since chicks that hatch during dry
 years experience a tenfold reduction in first-year survival compared to
 chicks that hatch during wet years. Second, female and male plovers in
 Maio are expected to live for 7.41 ± 0.69 (mean ± SE) years and 6.75 ±
 0.64 years, respectively, due to relatively high annual survival among
 comparable-sized shorebirds. High adult survival thus could buffer the
 population against low reproductive success that this population has
 experienced over the last decade. Cabo Verde is typical of tropical
 islands with increased development that can impact native breeders and/or
 will accelerate habitat loss. Thus, more frequent droughts associated with
 climate change may exacerbate the prospects of native wildlife on many
 islands.
description: Data collection Data collection followed a
 standard protocol developed to monitor the breeding ecology of plovers
 (Székely et al. 2008). When a Kentish plover nest was first found, the
 attending parents were captured at the nest with a funnel trap, and each
 bird was marked with a unique metal-colour ring combination. To minimise
 the risk of some breeders abandoning the nest upon capture, we only
 captured individuals on nests that had been incubated for at least 5 days.
 At some nests where the parents of the nest were already ringed, the
 metal-colour ring combination was read with binoculars or a spotting
 scope. The sex of adults was visually determined by sexual differences in
 plumage where females are drab brown, and males have black streaks on
 their forehead, eye stripe and around their neck. Chicks were ringed with
 one metal ring either at the nest at hatching or if encountered as a
 mobile juvenile after departing the nest. If juveniles survived and were
 recaptured as adults at a nest in a later year, they were marked with a
 full combination of colour-rings.
description: # Kentish plover capture histories
 These datasets are capture
 histories of Kentish plover chicks and adults from between 2007 and 2022.
 ## Description of the data and file structure These data are in inp.
 format and include the ring number of each individual and then their
 capture history. The capture history is a string of 0's and 1's
 and it has one of both options for each possible year (from 2007-2022). 0
 is when the bird was not captured in a given year and 1 is when a bird was
 captured. Here an example of a 6 year capture history: 010110 - this bird
 was first captured (and ringed) in the second year, was not captured in
 the third year, was captured in the fourth and fifth years and was not
 captured in the last year.