Results
We captured and radio-marked 225 female turkeys (201 adults, 24
juveniles) during 2014-2019. We monitored 245 nesting attempts (158
first, 69 second, 17 third, and 1 fourth nest attempt, respectively)
from 158 females during 2014-2019. We identified 30 social groups with
an average of 7 females per group (Table 1). Across all social groups
and years, mean proportion of individual ranges during the 21-day period
prior to first nest initiation that did not overlap was 7.18%. We
identified 6 subgroups of 2–3 females that separated from larger social
groups (Figure 2). Within social groups, we observed that ≥80% of
females maintained ranges that overlapped during the 21-day period prior
to nest initiation (Figure 3). Mean distance from the 21-day range
centroid to the subsequent nest location ranged from 974 to 6403 m
(Table 1) and averaged 2107 m (SD = 2131) across all females. Mean
distance from the centroid within the 21-day range to the first nest
attempt for successful (mean =1743 m, SD = 1175) and unsuccessful nests
(mean = 2154 m, SD = 2236) was similar (t = -1.28, df = 46,P = 0.205). We identified 15 instances of females whose initial
nest failed and they rejoined their social group, appearing to reinsert
themselves into the reproductive hierarchy over remaining subordinate
females that had not initiated a nest.
Across all years, mean date of first nest initiation was 12 April (SE =
1.2, range = 12 March – 23 May, median = 10 April). Within a social
group, earliest mean date of first nest initiation was 24 March (SE =
10.5, range = 14 March – 4 April, median = 24 March) whereas latest
mean date was 6 May (SE = 4, range = 2 – 10 May, median = 6 May; Table
1, Figure 4). We found that number of days between subsequent nest
attempts was negatively (β = -0.993, SE = 0.0.285, P<0.01) influenced by group size (Figure 5). For all years,
there were 21 successful first nest attempts (14% nest success), of
which 6 (29%) were first nests initiated within the respective social
group, and mean date of initiation for successful first nest attempts
was 7 April. Our findings suggest that ~30% of
successful initial first nests were produced by ~4% of
females we presumed to be dominant within their respective social
groups. We failed to detect a statistical difference in nest success
relative to date of nest initiation (β = -0.011, SE = 0.021, P =
0.58).
We observed that the mean number of days between successive first nest
attempts by females within a social group varied from 3 to 7 days across
years [mean = 3.9 (SE = 0.5) in 2014; mean = 3.0 (SE = 0.5) in 2015;
mean = 7.4, (SE = 0.7) in 2016; mean = 4.2 (SE = 0.3) in 2017; mean =
4.6 (SE = 0.4) in 2018; means = 7.2 (SE= 0.5) in 2019]. Mean number of
days between first nest attempts by females within a social group was
49% less for successful (mean = 2.8, SE = 0.4) than failed (5.5, SE =
0.2) attempts (z = -4.51, P < 0.001).