Predation of nests and young is one of the limiting factors in the conservation of birds; understanding environmental covariates of predator distribution can assist with decisions regarding the best management strategies to reduce predation risk. The habitat of beach‐nesting birds is often reshaped by storms in ways that may affect nest predation, such as by flattening vegetated dunes where mammals hunt, but human management of beaches tries to prevent the effects of storms on the landscape with unknown implications for predator distributions. Moreover, human development may affect predator distributions by subsidizing food and shelter. To determine the relationship between predator occupancy and landscape features in beach‐nesting bird habitat, we repeated mammalian predator track surveys 8 times/year at 90 plots in southern New Jersey, USA, from 2015–2017. We used dynamic occupancy models to estimate the probability of use by red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and to document changes in habitat use as related to landcover types over the avian breeding season within years. We had 373 red fox detections with years pooled. Detection probability for red foxes varied by year, and probability of use decreased as the distance to the nearest primary dune increased. We found no evidence that red fox habitat use depended on distance to human development. Our results suggest that conserving nesting habitat that includes open areas (i.e., storm overwash [whereby vegetation is scoured by tidal flooding]) may reduce predation risk because beach‐nesting birds would not be forced into nesting close to dunes, which are typically used for hunting by red foxes. © 2020 The Wildlife Society.

中文翻译：

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红狐对嵌套水鸟的景观使用

燕窝和幼崽的捕食是鸟类保护的限制因素之一。了解捕食者分布的环境协变量可以帮助做出有关减少捕食风险的最佳管理策略的决策。经常以暴风雨来改变海滩上筑巢的鸟类的栖息地的方式，这可能会影响巢穴的捕食，例如将哺乳动物狩猎的无尘沙丘弄平，但是人类对海滩的管理试图防止暴风雨对景观的影响，对捕食者的影响未知分布。此外，人类发展可能通过补贴食物和住房来影响捕食者的分布。为了确定海滩嵌套鸟类栖息地中的捕食者占用与景观特征之间的关系，我们在美国新泽西州南部的90个地块中，每年对哺乳动物的捕食者进行了8次/年的跟踪调查，每年进行8次，从2015年至2017年。我们使用动态入住率模型来估算赤狐使用的可能性（赤狐），并为两年内与土地覆盖类型在鸟类繁殖季节栖息地使用文档的更改。我们收集了373年赤狐检测信息。赤狐的检测概率随年份而变，并且使用概率随着到最近的沙丘距离的增加而降低。我们没有发现证据表明赤狐栖息地的使用取决于人类发展的距离。我们的结果表明，保护包括开阔地带（例如，暴风雨冲刷[潮汐洪水淹没植被]）的筑巢栖息地可能会降低捕食风险，因为不会将海滩筑巢的鸟类逼迫在沙丘附近筑巢，这通常用于用狐狸狩猎。©2020野生动物协会。