Behavioral response of mule deer to natural gas development in the Piceance Basin

2015 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.To view the abstract, please see the full text of the document

Improving spatial predictions of animal resource selection to guide conservation decision making

Resource selection is often studied by ecologists interested in the environmental drivers of animal space use and movement. These studies commonly produce spatial predictions, which are of considerable utility to resource managers making habitat and population management decisions. It is thus paramount that predictions from resource selection studies are accurate. We evaluated model building and fitting strategies for optimizing resource selection function predictions in a use‐availability framework. We did so by simulating low‐ and high‐intensity spatial sampling data that respectively predicted study area and movement‐based resource selection. We compared one of the most commonly used forms of statistical regularization, Akaike\u27s Information Criterion (AIC), with the lesser used least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO). LASSO predictions were less variable and more accurate than AIC and were often best when considering additive and interacting variables. We explicitly demonstrate the predictive equivalence using the logistic and Poisson likelihoods and how it is lost when the available sample is too small. Regardless of modeling approach, interpreting the sign of coefficients as a measure of selection can be misleading when optimizing for prediction

Diet and Environment Shape Fecal Bacterial Microbiota Composition and Enteric Pathogen Load of Grizzly Bears

Background: Diet and environment impact the composition of mammalian intestinal microbiota; dietary or health disturbances trigger alterations in intestinal microbiota composition and render the host susceptible to enteric pathogens. To date no long term monitoring data exist on the fecal microbiota and pathogen load of carnivores either in natural environments or in captivity. This study investigates fecal microbiota composition and the presence of pathogenic Escherichia coli and toxigenic clostridia in wild and captive grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) and relates these to food resources consumed by bears. Methodology/Principal Findings: Feces were obtained from animals of two wild populations and from two captive animals during an active bear season. Wild animals consumed a diverse diet composed of plant material, animal prey and insects. Captive animals were fed a regular granulated diet with a supplement of fruits and vegetables. Bacterial populations were analyzed using quantitative PCR. Fecal microbiota composition fluctuated in wild and in captive animals. The abundance of Clostridium clusters I and XI, and of C. perfringens correlated to regular diet protein intake. Enteroaggregative E. coli were consistently present in all populations. The C. sordellii phospholipase C was identified in three samples of wild animals and for the first time in Ursids. Conclusion: This is the first longitudinal study monitoring the fecal microbiota of wild carnivores and comparing it to that o

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

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

Conceptual and methodological advances in habitat-selection modeling: guidelines for ecology and evolution

Habitat selection is a fundamental animal behavior that shapes a wide range of ecological processes, including animal movement, nutrient transfer, trophic dynamics and population distribution. Although habitat selection has been a focus of ecological studies for decades, technological, conceptual and methodological advances over the last 20 yr have led to a surge in studies addressing this process. Despite the substantial literature focused on quantifying the habitat-selection patterns of animals, there is a marked lack of guidance on best analytical practices. The conceptual foundations of the most commonly applied modeling frameworks can be confusing even to those well versed in their application. Furthermore, there has yet to be a synthesis of the advances made over the last 20 yr. Therefore, there is a need for both synthesis of the current state of knowledge on habitat selection, and guidance for those seeking to study this process. Here, we provide an approachable overview and synthesis of the literature on habitat-selection analyses (HSAs) conducted using selection functions, which are by far the most applied modeling framework for understanding the habitat-selection process. This review is purposefully non-technical and focused on understanding without heavy mathematical and statistical notation, which can confuse many practitioners. We offer an overview and history of HSAs, describing the tortuous conceptual path to our current understanding. Through this overview, we also aim to address the areas of greatest confusion in the literature. We synthesize the literature outlining the most exciting conceptual advances in the field of habitat-selection modeling, discussing the substantial ecological and evolutionary inference that can be made using contemporary techniques. We aim for this paper to provide clarity for those navigating the complex literature on HSAs while acting as a reference and best practices guide for practitioners

Forest degradation drives widespread avian habitat and population declines

In many regions of the world, forest management has reduced old forest and simplified forest structure and composition. We hypothesized that such forest degradation has resulted in long-term habitat loss for forest-associated bird species of eastern Canada (130,017 km2) which, in turn, has caused bird-population declines. Despite little change in overall forest cover, we found substantial reductions in old forest as a result of frequent clear-cutting and a broad-scale transformation to intensified forestry. Back-cast species distribution models revealed that breeding habitat loss occurred for 66% of the 54 most common species from 1985 to 2020 and was strongly associated with reduction in old age classes. Using a long-term, independent dataset, we found that habitat amount predicted population size for 94% of species, and habitat loss was associated with population declines for old-forest species. Forest degradation may therefore be a primary cause of biodiversity decline in managed forest landscapes

Статус педагога в современном белорусском обществе

Материалы XII Междунар. науч. конф. студентов, магистрантов, аспирантов и молодых ученых, Гомель, 16–17 мая 2019 г

Impacts of the Northwest Forest Plan on forest composition and bird populations

The Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) initiated one of the most sweeping changes to forest management in the world, affecting 10 million hectares of federal land. The NWFP is a science-based plan incorporating monitoring and adaptive management and provides a unique opportunity to evaluate the influence of policy. We used >25 years of region-wide bird surveys, forest data, and landownership maps to test this policy's effect on biodiversity. Clearcutting decreased rapidly, and we expected populations of older-forest-associated birds to stabilize on federal land, but to continue declining on private industrial lands where clearcutting continued. In contrast, we expected declines in early-seral-associated species on federal land because of reduced anthropogenic disturbance since the NWFP. Bayesian hierarchical models revealed that bird species' population trends tracked changes in forest composition. However, against our expectations, declines of birds associated with older forests accelerated. These declines are partly explained by losses of older forests due to fire on federal land and continued clearcutting elsewhere. Indeed, the NWFP anticipated that reversing declines of older forests would take time. Overall, the early-seral ecosystem area was stable, but declined in two ecoregions-the Coast Range and Cascades-along with early-seral bird populations. Although the NWFP halted clearcutting on federal land, this has so far been insufficient to reverse declines in older-forest-associated bird populations. These findings underscore the importance of continuing to prioritize older forests under the NWFP and ensuring that the recently proposed creation of early-seral ecosystems does not impede the conservation and development of older-forest structure

Racial Similarities in Response to Standardized Offer of Influenza Vaccination

Despite known benefits of influenza vaccination and coverage by Medicare Part B, elderly minority patients are less likely to receive influenza vaccination than whites. OBJECTIVES : To test whether a nonphysician-initiated standardized offer of influenza vaccination to all elderly primary care patients would result in similar proportions of African-American and white patients accepting vaccine. DESIGN : In 7 metropolitan Detroit primary care practices during the 2003 influenza vaccination season, medical assistants assessed influenza immunization status of all patients 65 years and older and collected limited demographic data. Eligible patients were offered vaccination. MEASUREMENTS : Proportion of patients accepting influenza vaccination by race and predictors of vaccine acceptance. RESULTS : Four hundred and fifty-four eligible patients with complete racial information were enrolled: 40% African American, 52% white, 8% other race/ethnicity. Similar proportions of African Americans and whites had already received the 2003 vaccine (11.6% and 11.0%, respectively) or stated vaccination as the reason for visit (23.8% and 30.5%, respectively). Among the remainder, there also were similar proportions who accepted vaccination: 68.9% white and 62.1% African-American patients. History of previous vaccination was the only statistically significant predictor of vaccine acceptance (odds ratio [OR] 8.64, 95% confidence interval [CI] 4.17, 17.91, P <.001). After adjusting for history of previous vaccination, age, gender, and education, the odds of vaccine acceptance were no different for whites and African Americans (OR 1.20, 95% CI 0.63, 2.29, P =.57). CONCLUSIONS : Vaccination acceptance differed little between African-American and white elderly patients. Using nonphysician personnel to identify and offer influenza vaccine to eligible patients is easily accomplished in primary care offices and has the potential to eliminate racial disparities in influenza vaccination.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/74908/1/j.1525-1497.2006.00401.x.pd

Squeezed by a Habitat Split: Warm Ocean Conditions and Old‐forest Loss Interact to Reduce Long‐term Occupancy of a Threatened Seabird

Theory predicts that species requiring multiple habitat types simultaneously should have heightened sensitivity to anthropogenic pressures, yet tests of this prediction are especially rare. We tested whether breeding site occupancy of the threatened marbled murrelet (Brachyramphus marmoratus) was driven by the synergistic effects of nesting habitat loss in forests, and changing ocean condi- tions. We paired 70,700 murrelet surveys at 19,837 sites across 20 years from the Oregon Coast Range with annual data on the extent of old forest and biophysical ocean conditions. Dynamic occupancy models indicated that local murrelet col- onization rates were strongly reduced during warm ocean conditions with low prey availability. Landscapes that contained more old forest and were closer to the ocean showed reduced rates of local extinction. Given predictions of accel- erated ocean warming and increased global timber demand, our results suggest murrelets may continue to be imperiled by deterioration of the two habitats upon which they depend