Duck Foods in Managed Tidal Impoundments in South Carolina

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Abstract
An evaluation of duck food production and use in relation to management was conducted on private areas in coastal South Carolina [USA]. Foods from 684 ducks of 15 spp. [including Anas platyrhynchos, A. crecca, A. discors, A. acuta, A. rubripes, A. clypeata, A. americana, A. strepera, Aix sponsa, Aythya collaris, A. marila and A. affinis] comprised the sample. Of the total area of ponds, 43% was covered by duck food plants that made up 85.7% of the total food volume. These plants occurred only occasionally in undiked marsh. Six kinds of plants that were specific objects of management in diked impoundments contributed 66.0% of the food volume. Seeds of dotted smartweed (Polygonum punctatum) and fall panic grass (Panicum dichotomiflorum), and rhizomes and seeds of redroot (Lachnanthes caroliniana) were principal foods in freshwater impoundments drained in summer, subjected to various treatments and flooded in fall. In brackish impoundments principal foods were seeds and vegetative parts of widgeongrass (Ruppia maritima) in deeply flooded ponds and seeds of saltmarsh bulrush (Scirpus robustus) in shallower ponds with fluctuating water levels.

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