Management recommendations for ruffed grouse suggest the importance of providing and maintaining a mixture of forest age classes and cover types at the landscape scale ( Bump et al. Habitat requirements of ruffed grouse may change with season and grouse behaviour ( Bump, Darrow, Edminster & Crissey 1947, Chapman, Bezdek & Dustman 1952, Domey 1959, Maxson 1978, Thompson & Dessecker 1997).
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Landscape-level habitat characteristics, such as size, distribution, spatial arrangement and availability of different cover type patches, are important habitat features to species that occupy a variety of habitats during their life ( Kareiva 1990, Lamberson, McKelvey, Noon & Voss 1992, McKelvey, Noon & Lamberson 1992, Aberg, Swenson & Andrén 2000). Rhododendron and/or laurel thickets may act as supplemental cover in the absence of regeneration cuts, and may also be beneficial as winter cover. These patches should contain early successional cover.
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Creating and maintaining a landscape with high densities of small patches of uniform size and regular shape would provide the highest quality ruffed grouse habitat in this region. Regeneration cuts and mesic deciduous stands with a rhododendron Rhododendron spp.-laurel Kalmia latifolia understory were the most preferred cover types (P < 0.10). Grouse preferred areas containing a greater diversity of cover types (P < 0.01). Ruffed grouse selected areas with high densities of smaller than average patches of uniform size and shape, containing higher than average amounts of high contrast edge (P < 0.01). We used compositional analysis to test for preferential use of cover types.
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We compared landscape metrics of 23 home ranges to those calculated for the area encompassed by the home range plus a surrounding 300 m buffer, and to metrics calculated for 50 random plots of 33 ha each. We calculated the landscape metrics using FRAG-STATS/ARC. Grouse home ranges derived from telemetry data gathered from fall 1996 through fall 1998 were overlaid onto a GIS map of the Clinch Mountain Wildlife Management Area, southwest Virginia, USA, composed of 22 cover types (10,343 ha). We examined ruffed grouse Bonasa umbellus selection of landscape characteristics and cover types.