Over the past century, populations of North American grassland songbirds have declined sharply as a consequence of habitat destruction. Alberta’s mixed-grass prairie constitutes Canada’s largest remaining tract of native grassland. However, this region has recently undergone a rapid expansion of conventional oil and natural gas development, and few studies have documented its effects on songbird nesting success. During the 2012-2014 breeding seasons, I monitored 813 nests of grassland songbirds located at sites that varied with respect to presence/absence, distance from, and types of oil and gas infrastructure (pump jacks, screw pumps, compressor stations) and gravel roads. Nest survival was significantly lower at infrastructure sites relative to controls for both Savannah sparrow and vesper sparrow. Additionally, vesper sparrow nest density was greater within 100 m of structures. These findings suggest that habitat disturbance caused by infrastructure may result in increased frequencies of nest predation at multiple spatial scales. / February 2016
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MANITOBA/oai:mspace.lib.umanitoba.ca:1993/31068 |
| Date | 14 January 2016 |
| Creators | Bernath-Plaisted, Jacy |
| Contributors | Koper, Nicola (Natural Resources Managment), Sealy, Spencer (Biological Sciences) Ellison, Kevin (World Wildlife Federation) |
| Source Sets | University of Manitoba Canada |
| Detected Language | English |
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