Effects of forest regeneration on songbird movements in a managed forest landscape of Alberta

Abstract Recent studies have shown that barrier effects exist even in relatively vagile species such as forest songbirds. The objectives of this study were to determine whether a 560 × 100 m riparian buffer strip of mature forest was used as a movement corridor by forest songbirds and, if so, to what extent corridor effects persisted as woody vegetation regenerated in the adjacent clearcut. Over a 4-yr period, juvenile movement rates decreased in the riparian buffer strip and increased in the regenerating clearcut. Adult movement rates increased in the riparian buffer strip in the first year after logging, then gradually decreased, while still increasing in the regenerating clearcut. However, both juvenile and adult movement rates were higher in the buffer strip than in an undisturbed control site. Results suggest that most adults we captured held territories in the vicinity of the net lanes, and that most of the juveniles captured were dispersing away from their natal territory. Four years after harvest, juvenile movement rates were higher in the regenerating clearcut than in the riparian buffer strip, but several species had not yet been captured or detected in the regeneration. Our results suggest that the use of the riparian buffer strip as a movement corridor decreased with forest regeneration for both adults and juveniles. However, the buffer strip still acted as a movement corridor for the following species: Philadelphia and Red-eyed Vireos, Red-breasted Nuthatch, and Ovenbird

Stimulating a Canadian narrative for climate

ABSTRACT: This perspective documents current thinking around climate actions in Canada by synthesizing scholarly proposals made by Sustainable Canada Dialogues (SCD), an informal network of scholars from all 10 provinces, and by reviewing responses from civil society representatives to the scholars' proposals. Motivated by Canada's recent history of repeatedly missing its emissions reduction targets and failing to produce a coherent plan to address climate change, SCD mobilized more than 60 scholars to identify possible pathways towards a low-carbon economy and sustainable society and invited civil society to comment on the proposed solutions. This perspective illustrates a range of Canadian ideas coming from many sectors of society and a wealth of existing inspiring initiatives. Solutions discussed include climate change governance, low-carbon transition, energy production, and consumption. This process of knowledge synthesis/creation is novel and important because it provides a working model for making connections across academic fields as well as between academia and civil society. The process produces a holistic set of insights and recommendations for climate change actions and a unique model of engagement. The different voices reported here enrich the scope of possible solutions, showing that Canada is brimming with ideas, possibilities, and the will to act

Avian Conservation and Ecology Home > Vol. 2, Iss. 2 > Art. 1 > Abstract mullie Are Boreal Ovenbirds, Seiurus aurocapilla, More Prone to Move across Inhospitable Landscapes in Alberta’s Boreal Mixedwood Forest than in Southern Québec’s Temperate Deciduous Forest?

Population life-history traits such as the propensity to move across inhospitable landscapes should be shaped by exposure to landscape structure over evolutionary time. Thus, birds that recently evolved in landscapes fragmented by natural disturbances such as fire would be expected to show greater behavioral and morphological vagility relative to conspecifics that evolved under less patchy landscapes shaped by fewer and finer-scaled disturbances, i.e., the resilience hypothesis. These predictions are not new, but they remain largely untested, even for well-studied taxa such as neotropical migrant birds. We combined two experimental translocation, i.e., homing, studies to test whether Ovenbird, Seiurus aurocapilla, from the historically dynamic boreal mixedwood forest of north-central Alberta (n = 55) is more vagile than Ovenbird from historically less dynamic deciduous forest of southern Québec (n = 89). We found no regional difference in either wing loading or the response of homing Ovenbird to landscape structure. Nevertheless, this study presents a heuristic framework that can advance the understanding of boreal landscape dynamics as an evolutionary force

Ecological Adaptations of Birds to Forest Environments

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Functional connectivity of managed forest landscapes for the Ovenbird: an experimental assessment of within-patch movement behavior

Conservation efforts addressing the impacts of habitat loss and fragmentation on movements must rely on operational definitions of land-cover types that are relevant to the behavioral decisions made by the species of interest. Travel costs, and ultimately landscape resistance (or permeability to movement) can be assessed through experiments standardizing the motivation of individuals to move across specific landscape elements, including habitat patches, the matrix, and their edges. So far, most studies modeling landscape permeability based on cost values have focused on habitat-specialist species and characterized landscape composition based on contrasting, human-defined cover types such as forest and open land. We experimentally evaluated the permeability to movement of different forest-cover types for the Ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapilla), a neotropical migratory species breeding in mature deciduous or mixed forest. We compared homing time and movement patterns of 60 radio-tracked males translocated over 500 m and released in untreated or partially harvested mature deciduous stands, as well as in conifer plantations, in northwestern New Brunswick, Canada. Although there was no strong effect of forest-cover type on homing time, path tortuosity, or travel speed, individuals released in conifer plantations tended to move faster and straighter than those released within untreated forest. Considering that translocated Ovenbirds have been shown to be less likely to return to capture sites in landscapes dominated by conifer plantations, our results suggest that they minimize time spent in inhospitable cover types. Responses to conifer plantation edges and similar interfaces may thus represent decisive components of time-based functional connectivity estimates. Hence, it appears that not all forest-cover types offer an equal resistance to Ovenbird movements and, consequently, a dichotomic habitat/non-habitat view may be too simplistic when assessing or modeling landscape permeability for passerine birds