Chestnut-collared longspurs reduce parental care in the presence of conventional oil and gas development and roads

Ng, Christoph S.; Brisay, Paulson G. Des; Koper, Nicola

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2018.12.001

Cited by 21 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…The behavioral responses of deer we observed corroborate the findings of past studies on the species that have shown altered habitat selection in response to hydrocarbon development (Sawyer et al 2006, 2009, 2017; Webb et al 2011 c ; Northrup et al 2015, 2016 b ). Further, studies on other species have found similar behavioral responses to energy development and related infrastructure, with elk (Webb et al 2011 b ), sage‐grouse (Holloran et al 2010), and chestnut‐collared longspurs ( Calcarius ornatus ; Ng et al 2019) among the numerous species exhibiting altered behavior. Behavioral alterations in response to habitat modification are expected, as they are the initial means by which species can cope with disturbance (Berger‐Tal et al 2011, Greggor et al 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…These results contrast with those from avian studies that have examined the effect of energy development during the breeding season. Ng et al (2019) documented reduced parental care in chestnut-collared longspurs closer to development infrastructure, leading to fewer offspring fledged in these areas. Likewise, Walker et al (2007) documented declines in male sage-grouse attendance at leks when they were located closer to energy development.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Behavioral and Demographic Responses of Mule Deer to Energy Development on Winter Range

Northrup

Anderson

Gerber

et al. 2021

Wildlife Monographs

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Anthropogenic habitat modification is a major driver of global biodiversity loss. In North America, one of the primary sources of habitat modification over the last 2 decades has been exploration for and production of oil and natural gas (hydrocarbon development), which has led to demographic and behavioral impacts to numerous wildlife species. Developing effective measures to mitigate these impacts has become a critical task for wildlife managers and conservation practitioners. However, this task has been hindered by the difficulties involved in identifying and isolating factors driving population responses. Current research on responses of wildlife to development predominantly quantifies behavior, but it is not always clear how these responses scale to demography and population dynamics. Concomitant assessments of behavior and population‐level processes are needed to gain the mechanistic understanding required to develop effective mitigation approaches. We simultaneously assessed the demographic and behavioral responses of a mule deer population to natural gas development on winter range in the Piceance Basin of Colorado, USA, from 2008 to 2015. Notably, this was the period when development declined from high levels of active drilling to only production phase activity (i.e., no drilling). We focused our data collection on 2 contiguous mule deer winter range study areas that experienced starkly different levels of hydrocarbon development within the Piceance Basin.We assessed mule deer behavioral responses to a range of development features with varying levels of associated human activity by examining habitat selection patterns of nearly 400 individual adult female mule deer. Concurrently, we assessed the demographic and physiological effects of natural gas development by comparing annual adult female and overwinter fawn (6‐month‐old animals) survival, December fawn mass, adult female late and early winter body fat, age, pregnancy rates, fetal counts, and lactation rates in December between the 2 study areas. Strong differences in habitat selection between the 2 study areas were apparent. Deer in the less‐developed study area avoided development during the day and night, and selected habitat presumed to be used for foraging. Deer in the heavily developed study area selected habitat presumed to be used for thermal and security cover to a greater degree. Deer faced with higher densities of development avoided areas with more well pads during the day and responded neutrally or selected for these areas at night. Deer in both study areas showed a strong reduction in use of areas around well pads that were being drilled, which is the phase of energy development associated with the greatest amount of human presence, vehicle traffic, noise, and artificial light. Despite divergent habitat selection patterns, we found no effects of development on individual condition or reproduction and found no differences in any of the physiological or vital rate parameters measured at the population level. However, deer density and annual increases in density were higher in the low‐development area. Thus, the recorded behavioral alterations did not appear to be associated with demographic or physiological costs measured at the individual level, possibly because populations are below winter range carrying capacity. Differences in population density between the 2 areas may be a result of a population decline prior to our study (when development was initiated) or area‐specific differences in habitat quality, juvenile dispersal, or neonatal or juvenile survival; however, we lack the required data to contrast evidence for these mechanisms.Given our results, it appears that deer can adjust to relatively high densities of well pads in the production phase (the period with markedly lower human activity on the landscape), provided there is sufficient vegetative and topographic cover afforded to them and populations are below carrying capacity. The strong reaction to wells in the drilling phase of development suggests mitigation efforts should focus on this activity and stage of development. Many of the wells in this area were directionally drilled from multiple‐well pads, leading to a reduced footprint of disturbance, but were still related to strong behavioral responses. Our results also indicate the likely value of mitigation efforts focusing on reducing human activity (i.e., vehicle traffic, light, and noise). In combination, these findings indicate that attention should be paid to the spatial configuration of the final development footprint to ensure adequate cover. In our study system, minimizing the road network through landscape‐level development planning would be valuable (i.e., exploring a maximum road density criteria). Lastly, our study highlights the importance of concomitant assessments of behavior and demography to provide a comprehensive understanding of how wildlife respond to habitat modification. © 2021 The Wildlife Society.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Behavioral and Demographic Responses of Mule Deer to Energy Development on Winter Range

Northrup

Anderson

Gerber

et al. 2021

Wildlife Monographs

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“…Study areas were located in Alberta, Canada, near Brooks (50.5642°N 111.8989°W) and in Wisconsin, USA, near Mount Horeb (43.0167°N, 89.7500°W). Videos of Alberta nests were contributed by Ng et al (2019) (N = 11; 2013-2014), and those of Wisconsin nests were contributed by Renfrew et al (2005), Ribic et al (2012b), Ellison et al (2013), and Byers et al (2017) (N = 155;-2011. Behavior of adults and nestlings at the time of fledging was recorded in grassy habitats composed of native mixed-grass prairie, continuous and rotationally grazed pastures, remnant tall-grass prairie, or warm-season and cool-season fields enrolled in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Conservation Reserve Program.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Videos of Alberta nests were contributed by Ng et al. () ( N = 11; 2013–2014), and those of Wisconsin nests were contributed by Renfrew et al. (), Ribic et al.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Behavior of adult and young grassland songbirds at fledging

et al. 2019

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The behavior of adults and young at the time of fledging is one of the least understood aspects of the breeding ecology of birds. Current hypotheses propose that fledging occurs either as a result of parent‐offspring conflict or nestling choice. We used video recordings to monitor the behavior of nestling and adult grassland songbirds at the time of fledging. We observed 525 nestlings from 166 nests of 15 bird species nesting in grasslands of Alberta, Canada, and Wisconsin, USA. Overall, 78% of nestlings used terrestrial locomotion for fledging and 22% used wing‐assisted locomotion. Species varied in propensity for using wing‐assisted locomotion when fledging, with nestling Grasshopper Sparrows (Ammodramus savannarum) and Henslow's Sparrows (Centronyx henslowii) often doing so (47% of fledgings) and nestling Song Sparrows (Melospiza melodia), Common Yellowthroats (Geothlypis trichas), and Chestnut‐collared Longspurs (Calcarius ornatus) rarely doing so (3.5% of fledgings). For 390 fledging events at 127 nests, camera placement allowed adults near nests to be observed. Of these, most young fledged (81.5%) when no adult was present at nests. Of 72 fledging events that occurred when an adult was either at or approaching a nest, 49 (68.1%) involved feeding. Of those 49 fledgings, 30 (62.1%) occurred when one or more nestlings jumped or ran from nests to be fed as an adult approached nests. The low probability of nestlings fledging while an adult was at nests, and the tendency of young to jump or run from nests when adults did approach nests with food minimize opportunities for parents to withhold food to motivate nestlings to fledge. These results suggest that the nestling choice hypothesis best explains fledging by nestlings of ground‐nesting grassland songbirds, and fledging results in families shifting from being place‐based to being mobile and spatially dispersed.

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“…Among the most impermeable edges are asphalted linear infrastructures ubiquitous worldwide: roads (Forman et al 2003;van der Ree et al 2015). In winged animals, data on how movement behaviour is affected by roads have so far been collected mainly for birds (Lima et al 2015;Rytwinski and Fahrig 2015) which clearly react to roads and were even found to adjust their flight behaviour to speed limits of traffic on roads (Legagneux and Ducatez 2013), and to reduce the amount of parental care given to fledgelings (e.g., Ng et al 2019) when living next to a road. In insects, such data are even more limited, especially for habitats outside the usual European lowlands under more or less intense agricultural use (Muñoz et al 2015;Jacobson et al 2016;Andersson et al 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Permeability of habitat edges for Ringlet butterflies (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae, Erebia Dalman 1816) in an alpine landscape

Grill¹,

Polic²,

Guariento³

et al. 2020

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We tracked the movements of adult Ringlet butterflies (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae, Erebia Dalman, 1816) in high-elevation (> 1800 meters a.s.l.) grasslands in the Austrian Alps in order to test if an anthropogenic boundary (= an asphalt road) had a stronger effect on butterfly movement than natural habitat boundaries (trees, scree, or dwarf shrubs surrounding grassland sites). 373 individuals (136 females, 237 males) belonging to 11 Erebia species were observed in one flight season (July–August 2013) while approaching or crossing habitat edges. Erebia pandrose (Borkhausen, 1788) was the most abundant species with 239 observations. All species studied were reluctant to cross habitat boundaries, but permeability was further strongly affected by the border type. Additional variables influencing movement probability were species identity and the time of the day. In E. pandrose, for which we had sufficient observations to analyse this, individuals were more likely to cross a boundary in the morning and in the late afternoon than at midday. Erebia euryale (Esper, 1805) and E. nivalis Lorković & de Lesse, 1954 were more likely to leave a habitat patch than their studied congeners. The key result of our study is that the paved road had the lowest permeability among all edge types (0.1 likelihood of crossing when approaching the edge). A road cutting across a conservation area (viz. a national park) thus hinders inter-patch exchange among Ringlet butterflies in the alpine zone, even though theoretically they ought to be able to fly across.

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Chestnut-collared longspurs reduce parental care in the presence of conventional oil and gas development and roads

Cited by 21 publications

References 47 publications

Behavioral and Demographic Responses of Mule Deer to Energy Development on Winter Range

Behavioral and Demographic Responses of Mule Deer to Energy Development on Winter Range

Behavior of adult and young grassland songbirds at fledging

Permeability of habitat edges for Ringlet butterflies (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae, Erebia Dalman 1816) in an alpine landscape

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