Nest predation in suburban and rural woodlots of northern Ohio

The intensity of nest predation in small woodlots was compared across three regions in Ohio: (1) suburban Cuyahoga County, (2) semirural Lorain County and (3) rural Huron County. Artificial nests, each holding three Japanese quail eggs, were placed in seven Cuyahoga Co. woodlots, four Lorain Co. woodlots and four Huron Co. woodlots during July and August 1991. Half of the nests were placed on the ground, half were placed in the lower branches of trees. Eggs were removed from 257 of 354 nests. Ground nests suffered significantly more predation than tree nests, indicating that mammals were the primary predators. No significant difference in egg removal was found among the three regions, and no significant dependence was found between woodlot size and rate of nest predation. The lack of a suburban/rural difference and the insignificance of the woodlot size/predation relationship do not corroborate previously published studies that used methodologies similar to ours. The deviant nature of our results may reflect the more extensive cropland in our rural study region that provides food resources to sustain large populations of mammalian nest predators.