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).