RELATION BETWEEN WEATHER AND SURVIVAL OF WILD TURKEY NESTS

Recruitment can be highly variable within eastern wild turkey (Meleagr is gallopavo silvestris) populations and appears primarily associated with annual fluctuations in nest survival. Identification of the cause s of variation in nest survival could lead to the development of new i ndices to productivity. We used logistic regression to examine relatio ns between 14 weather variables and daily survival of wild turkey nest s (n = 3,332 nest-days from 206 nests) in southcentral New York from 1 May to 9 June 1990-93. Daily nest survival was associated negatively with cumulative departure from normal seasonal rainfall (P = 0.003) an d daily precipitation (P = 0.07) and was associated positively with he ating degree-days (P = 0.01). Although estimates of daily nest surviva l predicted by the logistic regression model were not correlated highl y with observed estimates (r = 0.31), a strong positive correlation wa s observed between predicted and observed probabilities of 20-day nest survival (r = 0.93).