The northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) has a huge geographic range that spans a north-south axis from Guatamela to southern New England and west to eastern Colorado. Across this range, a wide diversity of plants provide habitat resources that meet the annual life cycle needs of this species. Regardless of whether you are on a southeastern hunting plantation or a southwestern ranch, the habitat structure that supports bobwhites remains essentially the same. Little bluestem in the southwest is replaced by broomsedge in the southeast; both of these grasses provide preferred nesting cover. In the mid-west, sand plum provides woody cover and soft mast while American beautyberry provides the same in the southeast. Curiously, the inverse of this relationship also holds for the plants that destroy and degrade bobwhite habitat. Sod-forming fescues of the southeast are replaced by sod-forming bermudagrass in the pastures of central and south Texas; both of these grasses have devastated millions of acres of what used to be bobwhite habitat. Throughout the pine belt, too many pine trees preclude usable habitat space for bobwhites. It matters not if the pines are loblolly, shortleaf, or some other species of pine. Too many pines are too many pines. An appreciation of these regional habitat structure homologues can help managers understand how to provide usable habitat space for bobwhites regardless of the geographic location in which they work.
Oral presentation and poster titles, abstracts, and authors from the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meetings and Tradeshows, from 2013 forward.