Conclusion
Here we evaluated the link between food resources and an ecosystem engineer, and the subsequent influence of this engineer on local secondary cavity nesters. We observed that GFWO nest site location and home range size was positively correlated to biomass of the same three orders of insects that make up large proportions of their diet, and that all SCB had higher nest success in abandoned woodpecker cavities than natural cavities. Thus, GFWO nest in areas with abundant food and SCB reap the benefits of the stable cavities they leave behind, along with opportunistically high insect loads. Our results also suggest that GFWO nest characteristics may influence nest success in ways that differ from more temperate species, indicating future research avenues into energetics and predation pressure tradeoffs in high temperature regions. Additionally, management for woodpeckers and SCB in southern Texas should not focus on the availability of snags (a common management strategy for woodpeckers in temperate climates), but on the number of live trees with a DBH wide enough for nesting.