We used publically available data on duck breeding distribution and recently compiled geospatialdata on upland habitat and environmental conditions to develop a spatially explicitmodel of breeding duck populations across the entire Prairie Pothole Region (PPR). Ourspatial population models were able to identify key areas for duck conservation across thePPR and predict between 62.1 – 79.1% (68.4% avg.) of the variation in duck counts by yearfrom 2002 – 2010. The median difference in observed vs. predicted duck counts at a transectsegment level was 4.6 ducks. Our models are the first seamless spatially explicit modelsof waterfowl abundance across the entire PPR and represent an initial step toward jointconservation planning between Prairie Pothole and Prairie Habitat Joint Ventures. Our workdemonstrates that when spatial and temporal variation for highly mobile birds is incorporatedinto conservation planning it will likely increase the habitat area required to support definedpopulation goals. A major goal of the current North American Waterfowl ManagementPlan and subsequent action plan is the linking of harvest and habitat management. We contendincorporation of spatial aspects will increase the likelihood of coherent joint harvestand habitat management decisions. Our results show at a minimum, it is possible to producespatially explicit waterfowl abundance models that when summed across survey stratawill produce similar strata level population estimates as the design-based Waterfowl BreedingPair and Habitat Survey (r2 = 0.977). This is important because these design-based populationestimates are currently used to set duck harvest regulations and to set duckpopulation and habitat goals for the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. We hopethis effort generates discussion on the important linkages between spatial and temporal variationin population size, and distribution relative to habitat quantity and quality when linkinghabitat and population goals across this important region.
