Prioritizing winter habitat quality for greater sage‐grouse in a landscape influenced by energy development

Abstract

Prioritizing habitats that provide the best options for the persistence of sensitive species in human‐modified landscapes is a critical concern for conservation. Linking occurrence and fitness parameters across multiple spatial scales provides an approach to address habitat prioritization for species of concern in disturbed habitats. To demonstrate the usefulness of this approach, we generated resource selection and survival risk models as a framework to quantify habitat value for wintering female greater sage‐grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) inhabiting a 6,093‐km2 study area in northwest Colorado and south‐central Wyoming, USA, being developed for oil and natural gas reserves. Our approach allowed us to evaluate the relative influence of anthropogenic development and environmental attributes characterizing a large landscape on habitat selection and habitat‐specific survival in winter for female sage‐grouse. When combined, these models provided a spatial representation of habitat quality to inform management and conservation of critical wintering habitats. We used 537 locations from 105 radio‐marked female grouse obtained from 18 fixed‐wing flights across winters 2007–2008, 2008–2009, and 2009–2010. Wintering sage‐grouse selected areas with higher wetness potential (0.75‐km2 scale), intermediate (quadratic form) total shrub cover (18.83‐km2 scale), higher variability in shrub height (18.83‐km2 scale), and less heterogeneity in Wyoming big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata wyomingensis; 4.71‐km2 scale) cover and total shrub cover (18.83‐km2 scale). Anthropogenic surface disturbance (0.75‐km2 scale) was negatively associated with occurrence. Winter survival for female grouse was positively correlated with heterogeneity in big sagebrush cover at the 0.75‐km2 scale, but negatively correlated with heterogeneity in total shrub cover at the 18.83‐km2 scale. We did not detect an association between anthropogenic variables and female winter survival. However, displacement of sage‐grouse in the energy extraction area may have masked our ability to identify anthropogenic variables potentially influencing survival. Our winter habitat quality map indicated highly effective winter habitat (high occurrence‐low survival risk) was limited, only representing 17.1% of our study area. Consequently, displacement from these limited, high‐quality winter habitats could have profound consequences to population persistence.

Approaches to delineate greater sage‐grouse winter concentration areas

“…Sage‐grouse selected landscapes that were less rugged with warmer aspects dominated by sagebrush. These findings were generally consistent with previous winter sage‐grouse research (Carpenter et al ; Smith et al , ; Holloran et al ; Walker et al ). Sage‐grouse also selected winter habitats closer to leks and in areas with greater breeding densities (as indexed by male lek counts) within 11.1 km of known leks.…”

“…Sage‐grouse are a partially migratory species with many individuals within populations using spatially distinct breeding and winter habitats (Connelly et al , Dinkins et al , Pratt et al ). During winter, sage‐grouse generally require large expanses of sagebrush above snow in flatter terrain with few anthropogenic features (Doherty et al ; Carpenter et al ; Dzialak et al ; Smith et al , ; Holloran et al ). The Wyoming Sage‐grouse Executive Order recognized a need to identify areas where sage‐grouse exhibit concentrated winter use (winter concentration areas [WCAs]) because these areas may not have been adequately protected with the Core Area Strategy's focus on breeding habitat.…”

Mitigation effectiveness for improving nesting success of greater sage‐grouse influenced by energy development

“…Sage-grouse research using presence-absence data has consistently revealed disproportionately low use of habitat associated with energy infrastructure (Aldridge and Boyce 2007, Naugle et al 2011, Hess and Beck 2012, Smith et al 2014). Therefore, it is important to consider our findings in the context of female sage-grouse choices for nest placement.…”

Seasonal Habitat Use by Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) on a Landscape with Low Density Oil and Gas Development

“…In addition, we removed aspen ( Populus tremuloides ) and forest because models did not converge due to the lack of these variables in the presence buffers in all seasons. Thus, the vegetation categories we used in model development were irrigated agriculture, sagebrush, grassland, sagebrush/grassland, and riparian, which have all been shown to be important predictors of GRSG habitat in previous studies (S1 Appendix; [15, 19, 26–28]). We also updated the irrigated agriculture vegetation class from the basinwide layer using the Colorado Division of Water Resources District 47 irrigated agriculture shapefile from 2011 [29].…”

“…Previous research examining the effects of energy development on habitat use suggests that GRSG populations are negatively affected by energy development activities, especially those that degrade important sagebrush habitat [10–12]. This often results in a decrease in available habitat or the avoidance of critical seasonal habitat [13–15]. Most of these studies have been conducted in areas where energy development already exists at high levels of development.…”