Habitat Ecology and Conservation of Wild Turkeys

Wild turkeys (Meleagris spp.) occupy a wide array of ecosystems across North America, from mesic hardwood forests and pine savannas to semi-arid mountain woodlands. Their habitat ecology is characterised by seasonal shifts in resource use, driven by reproductive cycles, forage availability and predation risk. During nesting and brood-rearing periods, females select sites that balance concealment and access to diverse food patches, while adults adjust home‐range size and movement pathways in response to landscape structure and disturbance regimes. Anthropogenic practices—such as prescribed fire, forestry operations and agricultural expansion—alter habitat composition and connectivity, with cascading effects on survival, recruitment and population trajectories. Conservation efforts now emphasise adaptive landscape management, integrating demographic monitoring, habitat restoration and harvest regulations. This integrated approach seeks to sustain viable turkey populations by maintaining early-successional cover, protecting key roosting and nesting habitats and ensuring corridors for seasonal movements.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have demonstrated the importance of fine-scale movement patterns in shaping resource selection across life stages. Analyses using state-specific movement models reveal that brood‐rearing turkeys exhibit distinct recursive revisitation of feeding and cover sites as chicks age, emphasising vegetation density and proximity to shrub–scrub habitats. Such findings underscore the need to incorporate behavioural state into habitat-use models for more precise management prescriptions. In semi-arid mountain landscapes, habitat selection by Gould’s wild turkeys was shown to hinge on proximity to water sources, pine forest stands and favourable topographic aspects. These birds preferred mid-elevation slopes with northerly or westerly aspects, illustrating how topography and landcover interact to define niche suitability and guiding targeted conservation of fragmented montane populations.

Habitat Ecology and Conservation of Wild Turkeys publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in habitat ecology and conservation of wild turkeys across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Home range: The area regularly traversed by an individual to fulfill its life-history requirements, encompassing all routine movements for feeding, breeding and shelter.

Resource selection function (RSF): A statistical model that estimates the relative probability of habitat use by relating animal locations to environmental covariates.

Recursive movement: The pattern of repeated visits by an animal to specific sites within its home range, reflecting preferred foraging or resting areas.

Prospecting: Exploratory movements by breeding adults to assess the suitability of potential resource patches for nesting or brood rearing.

References

1. Behavioral-dependent recursive movements and implications for resource selection. Scientific Reports (2023).
2. Habitat selection of Gould’s wild turkeys in southeastern Arizona. Scientific Reports (2023).
3. Prospecting during egg laying informs incubation recess movements of eastern wild turkeys. Movement Ecology (2024).
4. Eastern wild turkey nest site selection in two frequently burned pine savannas. Ecological Processes (2016).
5. Review of range‐wide vital rates quantifies eastern wild Turkey population trajectory. Ecology and Evolution (2023).