Survival of artificial nests was mostly related to vegetation parameters. Tests of effects of distance to edge, fragment size, and vegetation structure on nesting success and its correlates. Thus a negative parameter indicates that the probability that a nest fails or gets parasitized decreases with increasing fragment size or vegetation variable. The analysis includes nests in proximity to shrubby edge only. This component summarized a range of high to low scores on litter depth and litter cover, as well as low to high scores on cover by forbs and bare soil.
Bars indicate standard errors.
Twenty-five percent of the nest predators could not be identified because either the clay egg was missing or the imprints were not recognizable. Too few nests were found within 50 m of a forest to investigate effects of that type of edge. This component describes a continuum from low to high litter depth, vegetation height, and visual obstruction, indicating that Dickcissel nesting success increased with increasing vegetation height and density. Species composition of mid-sized carnivores at track stations differed from that determined from clay eggs. Visitation frequencies of mammals at three distance intervals from a forested edge in fragments of native tallgrass prairie in southwestern Missouri, 1996-1997.