Demographic responses of interior least terns and piping plovers to the Missouri River flood of 2011: an ecological experiment

Federally listed least terns ( Sternula antillarum) and piping plovers ( Charadrius melodus) nest in spatially and temporally variable riverine, sandbar and shoreline habitats in the North American midcontinent. In a naturally functioning river system, sand is eroded, transported, and deposited by seasonally variable flows, creating and maintaining emergent sandbars. However, operation of dams on the Missouri River has attenuated peak spring flows, resulting in declines in abundance and quality of unvegetated sandbar habitats favored by nesting terns and plovers. The Missouri River Flood of 2011 was a historically and ecologically significant event in which summer flows exceeded all historical records for the post-dam era (i.e., since [...]