Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Master's Theses Graduate School 2007 The seu of stable isotopes to determine the ratio of resident to migrant king rails in southern Louisiana and Texas Marie Perkins Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses Part of the Environmental Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Perkins, Marie, "The use of stable isotopes to determine the ratio of resident to migrant king rails in southern Louisiana and Texas" (2007). LSU Master's Theses. 287. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses/287 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Master's Theses by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE USE OF STABLE ISOTOPES TO DETERMINE THE RATIO OF RESIDENT TO MIGRANT KING RAILS IN SOUTHERN LOUISIANA AND TEXAS A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science In The School of Renewable Natural Resources by Marie Perkins B.S. Central Michigan University, 2002 May, 2007 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank my advisor, Dr. Sammy King for all of his help and support. I also thank my graduate committee, Dr. Phil Stouffer and Dr. Brian Fry for their assistance with this project. This project could never have been accomplished without the help of Jeb Linscombe, who spent countless hours with me out in the field and helped to perfect the technique of capturing rails at night with an airboat. He was always willing to take time out of his busy schedule to help me, and for this I am deeply indebted to him. This project was funded by The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge. I thank Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge, Marsh Island Wildlife Refuge, Sherburne Wildlife Management Area, Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge, Grand Cote National Wildlife Refuge, Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge, and Lacassine National Wildlife Refuge. They provided me with access to their land, airboats, airboat drivers, volunteers, housing, and logistical support. Sweet Lake Land and Oil, Inc., and rice farmers Jim Johnson, Ronnie Guidry, Brad Thibodeaux, Richard Byler, and Phil Watkins also provided me with access to their land, and were good natured about me running all over their harvested fields in an ATV. I thank all of my airboat drivers: Jeb Linscombe, George Melancon, Philip “Scooter” Trosclair, Darren Richard, Dwayne Lejeune, Tom Hess, Matt Whitbeck, Steve Lejeune, Patrick Walther, Mike Nance, Troy Blair, Cassidy Lejeune, Steve Regan, Mike Hoff, and Billy Leonard. I also thank the LSU undergraduate and graduate students, LSU faculty and staff, and refuge staff that volunteered to help me capture rails. I would ii especially like to thank Jessica O’Connell, Sergio Pierluissi, and Aaron Pierce, who were willing to help out anytime I needed an extra hand in the field. Also, I thank my technicians John Trent and Michelle Maley who were invaluable to this project. I am grateful for the USGS National Wetlands Research Center and Steve Travis, Ben Sikes, and Kevin Wessner for their help with the genetic analysis. I also thank Dr. Mike Kaller for help with the statistical analyses. The Museum of Comparative Zoology, Peabody Museum of Natural History, California Academy of Sciences, Field Museum of Natural History, Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, The University of Arkansas Collections Facility, University of Kansas Natural History Museum, and Tom Kashmer provided the feather material from northern breeding rails. Lastly, I thank my family. My parents, Tom and Sharon Perkins, my sister, Theresa, brother-in-law, Jamie, and nephew, Connor, were always there when I needed them, particularly during the writing of this thesis. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS AKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………...ii LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………………………………...v LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………………………………………vi ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………….viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………1 CHAPTER 2: CAPTURE TECHNIQUES FOR WINTERING RAILS IN SOUTHERN LOUISIANA AND TEXAS……………………………………………………………..10 METHODS…………………………………………………………………………..12 RESULTS……………………...…………………………………………………….20 DISCUSSION………………………………………………………………………..23 CHAPTER 3: THE USE OF MORPHOMETRIC MEASURMENTS TO DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN SPECIES AND SEX OF KING AND CLAPPPER RAILS……………………………………………………………………………………30 METHODS…………………………………………………………………………..32 RESULTS…………………………………...……………………………………….34 DISCUSSION………………………………………………………………………..39 CHAPTER 4: THE USE OF STABLE ISOTOPES TO DETERMINE A RATIO OF RESIDENT TO MIGRANT KING RAILS IN SOUTHERN LOUISIANA AND TEXAS…………………………………………………………………………………...47 METHODS……………………………………………………………………….….53 RESULTS………………………...………………………………………………….58 DISCUSSION………………………………………………………………………..77 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS………………………………………………………....83 LITERATURE CITED…………………………………………………………………..85 APPENDIX A: SPECIMEN INFORMATIION FOR MUSEUM SPECEMENS AND NORTHERN COLLECTED RAILS…………………………………………………….92 APPENDIX B: SPECIMEN INFORMATIION FOR RAILS CAPTURED IN LOUISIANA AND TEXAS……………………………………………………………..96 VITA……………………………………………………………………………………116 iv LIST OF TABLES Table 1: A summary of the rail capture effort and success using an airboat at night. Dates for the time periods are: winter 1, 29 September 2004 – 28 March 2005, summer 1, 7 April 2005 – 24 May 2005, winter 2, 11 November 2005 – 23 March 2006, summer 2, 11 and 12 July 2006. The capture rate for this technique was 2.13 rails/hour....................... 21 Table 2: A summary of the rail capture effort and success using an ATV at night. Dates for time periods are: winter 2, 17 October 2005 – 9 February 2006. The capture rate for this technique was 1.80 rails/hour..................................................................................... 22 Table 3: A summary of the rail trapping effort and success using passive drop-door traps with drift fencing. Dates for the time periods are: winter 1, 24 September 2004 – 8 March 2005, and summer 1, 14 and 15 May 2005. The capture rate for this technique was 0.0063 rails/trap hour.................................................................................................................... 22 Table 4: Average water depth at the location of capture for each rail species. ................ 23 Table 5: The mean, standard deviation, and range (in parenthesis) of positively identified male and female king rails and male and female clapper rails. ........................................ 37 Table 6: Differences seen for field identified, genetically sexed rails, and the predicted classification of rails by discriminant analysis of their morphometric measurements. .... 38 Table 7: The mean, standard deviation, and range (in parenthesis) of male and female king rails and male and female clapper rails identified by both field techniques and genetic sexing, and by discriminant analysis.................................................................... 39 Table 8: Expected values of hydrogen, carbon, and sulfur stable isotopes for rail feathers from four different breeding locations.............................................................................. 53 Table 9: Mean, standard deviation, and range (in parenthesis) of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur stable isotope values (‰) for resident rails, king rails, uncertain king rails, Virginia rails, and yellow rails................................................................................. 61 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: King rail range map, data modified in ArcGIS 9.1 from http://www.natureserve.org/getData/birdMaps.jsp. Accessed 19 June 2006. .................... 2 Figure 2: Clapper rail range map, data modified in ArcGIS 9.1 from http://www.natureserve.org/getData/birdMaps.jsp. Accessed 19 June 2006. .................... 3 Figure 3: Virginia rail range map, data modified in ArcGIS 9.1 from http://www.natureserve.org/getData/birdMaps.jsp. Accessed 19 June 2006. .................... 4 Figure 4: Sora range map, data modified in ArcGIS 9.1 from http://www.natureserve.org/getData/birdMaps.jsp. Accessed 19 June 2006. .................... 5 Figure 5: Yellow rail range map, data modified in ArcGIS 9.1 from http://www.natureserve.org/getData/birdMaps.jsp. Accessed 19 June 2006. .................... 6 Figure 6: Black rail range map, data modified in ArcGIS 9.1 from http://www.natureserve.org/getData/birdMaps.jsp. Accessed 19 June 2006. .................... 7 Figure 7: The approximate locations of the sites used in this study. ................................ 13 Figure 8: A large drop-door trap with drift fencing, with king rail inside the trap........... 18 Figure 9: Typical Spartina patens marsh in which rails were captured using the airboat capture technique. ............................................................................................................. 25 Figure 10: Means and standard deviation for the measurements of wing (mm), tail (mm), tarsus (mm), culmen (mm), and weight (g) for male and female clapper rails and male and female king rails. Bars sharing a letter do not differ (p > 0.05)................................. 36 Figure 11: The discriminant functions used to separate female clapper