Insect abundance within and between Piping Plover nesting sites.

Abstract

Piping Plovers are endangered in the Great Lakes region (Wemmer et al. 1993). To reach the goal of 100 breeding pairs, factors influencing distribution need to be assessed. Food availability may be a limiting factor. Samples of used and unused sites in Michigan revealed that used and unused sites are not significantly different in insect abundance (one-tailed t-test p=.41). Traps within a site have similar proportions of insect orders (chi-square=2.9E-8, df=27). There may or may not be a correlation between distance between traps and similarity (ps range from .01 to .87). Abundance varies within sites. Chick gizzard contents contain significantly different insect families than samples from the same site (chi-square=757, df=?). Further study is required. A new sampling technique would improve accuracy.