ORIGINAL PAPER Factors influencing reproductive performance of northern bobwhite in South Florida Virginie Rolland & Jeffrey A. Hostetler & Tommy C. Hines & H. Franklin Percival & Madan K. Oli Received: 8 July 2010 / Revised: 24 November 2010 / Accepted: 24 November 2010 # Springer-Verlag 2010 Abstract Reproductive success is a critical component of individual fitness, and also an important determinant of growth rates of populations characterized by early maturity and high fecundity. We used radiotelemetry data collected during 2003–2008 to estimate reproductive parameters in a declining northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) popula- tion in South Florida, and to test hypotheses regarding factors influencing these parameters. The overall clutch size was 12.10±0.22, but females laid more eggs in their first clutch (12.43±0.24) than in subsequent clutches (10.19± 0.53) within a nesting season. Daily nest survival was higher for first (0.966±0.003) than subsequent nests (0.936±0.011). Hatchability (proportion of laid eggs that hatched conditional upon nest survival to hatching) was 0.853±0.008, but was higher for nests incubated by females (0.873±0.009) than those incubated by males (0.798±0.018). The proportion of individuals attempting a second nest was 0.112±0.024 and 0.281±0.040 when the first nest was successful and failed, respectively. Hatchability was lower when the nesting habitat was burned the previous winter. We found no evidence that food strip density (a management practice to provide supplemental food) influenced any of the reproductive parameters. Mean summer temperature affected hatchability, nest survival, and proportion of nests incubated by males. Overall, the reproductive output in our study population was lower than that reported for most other bobwhite populations, indicating that low reproductive performance may have contributed to bobwhite population declines in our study site. These results suggest that current management practices, particularly those related to habitat and harvest management, need careful evaluation. Keywords Burning . Colinus virginianus . Hatchability . Male participation . Nest survival . Weather conditions Introduction Reproductive success is a critical component of individual fitness, and also an important determinant of growth rates of populations characterized by early maturity and high fecundity (Cole 1954; Saether and Bakke 2000; Oli and Dobson 2003; Stahl and Oli 2006). In most species of birds and mammals, fecundity is composed of several compo- nents (e.g., clutch or litter size, breeding probabilities, nest survival). Although nesting success seems to be the key reproductive parameter in many short-lived species of birds (see Clark and Martin 2007 for a review), the relative contribution of various components of reproduction on Communicated by C. Gortázar Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10344-010-0479-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. V. Rolland (*) : J. A. Hostetler : M. K. Oli Department of Wildlife and Ecology Conservation, University of Florida, 110 Newins-Ziegler Hall, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA e-mail: vrolland@ufl.edu T. C. Hines RT 3, P.O. Box 509, Newberry, FL 32669, USA H. F. Percival U.S. Geological Survey, Florida Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Department of Wildlife and Ecology Conservation, University of Florida, Bldg 810, Gainesville, FL 32611-0485, USA Eur J Wildl Res DOI 10.1007/s10344-010-0479-5