Grassland bird community and acoustic complexity appear unaffected by proximity to a wind energy facility in the Nebraska Sandhills

The condor

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关键词: ACI;    acoustic complexity;    grassland songbirds;    Greater Prairie-Chicken leks;    indirect impacts;    perforation;    wind turbine noise;   

DOI  :  10.1650/CONDOR-16-164.1

学科分类：动物科学

来源: Central Ornithology Publication Office

【 摘 要 】

ABSTRACT The placement of wind energy facilities on the landscape is a potential source of direct mortality for wildlife, but indirect effects of wind facilities on natural communities are less well known. An anthropogenically altered acoustic environment may render habitat unsuitable for species that use vocalizations to communicate. We listened to sound recordings to identify the species assemblage of common breeding birds in an unfragmented grassland in the Nebraska Sandhills (USA) in the vicinity of a wind energy facility. From the recordings, we calculated the Acoustic Complexity Index (ACI), which we used to assess differences in the avian community between a reference area (>760 m from any turbines) and a treatment area (<760 m from turbines). We did not observe differences at the assemblage level using univariate metrics of diversity: mean species richness (3.48 vs. 3.25 species per recording event) and Whittaker βw index (6.03 vs. 5.85 species turnover of habitat type) or the ACI (0.17 vs. 0.15)....

【 授权许可】

CC BY