Habitat associations of wintering dabbling ducks in the Arkansas Mississippi Alluvial Valley: implications for waterfowl management beyond the mallard

Mallard Anas platyrhynchos ecology drives current habitat management strategies for most waterfowl; however, are these suitable other dabbling duck species? Migratory waterfowl, in addition to mallards, the lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley experience heavy hunting pressure, so should be appropriate a broader array of species. We investigated associations ducks (dabblers) Arkansas portion and factors driving winter distributions. modeled aerial survey data over seven years with Bayesian spatio–temporal models test what landscape covariates affected dabbler use. found that distributions were closely associated open water, inundated surface water agricultural such as rice, soybeans fallow fields. Surface extent rice field key drivers high abundances. These habitat–covariate same used by suggesting focused on mallards likely is dabblers, at least broad scale our study.