Predator idendity

The main predators of ground nests identified in this study were mice, and other nest predation experiments have identified mice as a significant predator of artificial nests . These results are in contrast to previous findings that cast doubt on rodents willingness to predate quail eggs in artificial nest experiments . Natural experiments in the U.S. have found over 75% of ground nest predations are caused by terrestrial rodents \cite{Sanders_2019} These results are slightly higher than our experiment (63%), however my results underline the ubiquity of the significant impacts rodents have on ground nesting bird communities. Particularly given that nest predation is the most significant cause of nest failure . Mouse-driven nest predation decreased with proximity to the edge, as 58.6% of mouse depredations took place in the forest interior. This may be due to the populations dynamics and range size of mice in forested regions. Previous studies in tropical habitats have suggested that forest edges are a more preferable habitat to various species of mice, particularly over ecotones with sharp productivity gradients . Generally mouse population density is lower in the interior of forests, this is suggested to be due to the edge being a richer habitat which could be modelled using an ideal despotic distribution (IDD)  However it's also been shown small forest fragment size has positive impacts on the fitness associated traits of mice, such as body size .  In this particularly small forest fragment it may be that the distance to edge to maximise mouse fitness is >10m, and the beneficial abiotic factors of the edge reach further into the forest than the edge as defined in this study.

Autocorrelation of arboreal nest locations

One of the more unusual results from this experiment is the spatial autocorrelation between arboreal nest proximity and location, which is not present on ground nests. Particularly given that the dispersal constraints of terrestrial predators are usually larger than those of arboreal predators. As there is a smaller diversity of arboreal predators in the U.K., the autocorrelation could be due to a smaller number of individuals predating the nests, limited by their dispersal constraints. In conjunction, the ground nests were predated on by more individuals, disguising individual dispersal patterns. This could be an avenue of future study, however it should be noted the spatial autocorrelation was quite weak (r = 0.089), so the result may not be ecologically significant. 

Predation intensity

Predation intensity at ground levels were significantly larger than those in arboreal nests, which supports some previous studies , although this result is not universal  Ground nest predation rates in this experiment were very high compared to other artificial nest experiments, regardless of nest location \cite{article}. There are many potential reasons for this effect. As previously mentioned, it may be due to an annual seasonal effect of spring increasing predation rates nationwide \cite{Malzer_2015}. The sharp edge of the forest may also play a role. The bordering open grassland is capable of supporting high densities of opportunistic generalist predators which can follow linear foraging routes of the edge. However, while this may have guided mesopredators to edge nests, but does not adequately explain the high interior predation rates \cite{Lahti_2001}