MONTHLY WILDLIFE RESEARCH LETTER 
HISTORY survey 
JUN l o 1980 
LIBRARY 
Illinois Federal Aid Projects W-66-R and W- 87 -R 
Department of Conservation and Natural History Survey, Cooperating 
Glen C. Sanderson and Eva Steger, Editors 
(Jrbana, Illinois 
May, 1980 
Vol. 23, No. 5 
Manipulation of Pheasant Habitat - W-66-R R. E. Warner 
The design for analyzing the frequency of nesting by pheasants on randomly 
selected roadside plots on the Ford County Management Unit (FCMU) from 1973*79 
was introduced last month (MWRL 23(4):1). Factors which partly explain variation 
in the number of nests per plot per year were identified by multivariate analysis 
of variance (ANOVA) tests. 
Year and distance from plots to the nearest hay and small grain (oats or 
wheat) fields were significant variables (P^.05) in the ANOVA model (Table 1). 
Distance of both hay and small grains correlated negatively with the number of 
nests per plot (small grains, r = -. 25 ; hay, r = -. 13 ) and are of little value 
in predicting nest densities on roadside plots. Multiple regression models 
show that the hay, small grain, and farmstead variables together explain only 
7% of the variation among plots in the numbers of nests. 
In the last decade, the reduction of hay and small grain fields on the 
FCMU have impaired relative rates of survival and reproductive success of 
pheasants; the resulting decline in pheasant abundance largely explains the 
year-to-year decline in numbers of nests per plot. The year variable (Table 1) 
reflects this phenomenon. 
Scatter plots in conjunction with the ANOVA model (Table 1) indicate that 
the probability a pheasant(s) will nest in a given roadside plot increases as 
the distance from the nearest hay or small grain field decreases. This is 
particularly evident for plots adjacent to a hay or small grain field; these 
plots tend to have greater-than-average numbers of nests for any given year. 
Table 1. Independent variables considered in a multivariate ANOVA of 
nesting by pheasants on seeded roadside plots on the FCMU. The dependent 
variable = number of nests per plot per year (n = 504). 
Source of Variation 
F- value 
Significance 
COVARIATES:- 
Hay 
3.9 
.049 
Small Grains 
40.9 
.001 
Farmstead 
0.8 
• 370 
Table l - continued 
