Avian community response to landscape-scale habitat reclamation

Abstract

Reclamation projects encompassing more than several square kilometers (hereafter; landscape-scale) are a recommended strategy to mitigate the impacts of energy development on wildlife. However, the response of wildlife to landscape-scale reclamation remains largely undocumented. Oil and gas developments have contributed substantially to the loss and degradation of sagebrush ecosystems in North America. Management agencies are prioritizing habitat reclamation to mitigate habitat loss with an assumed benefit to wildlife, including songbirds. To determine the influence of landscape-scale habitat reclamation on songbirds, we measured avian species abundance and community composition in sagebrush habitats across a gradient of energy development: 1) active oil and gas, 2) landscape-scale reclamation, and 3) undisturbed sagebrush, in northeastern Wyoming, USA (2016–2018). We modeled the influence of treatment (active, reclaimed, and control), and key habitat variables on songbird abundance using a Bayesian hierarchical approach. We also assessed differences in community composition across treatments using the rarity-weighted richness estimate and the Jaccard Similarity Index. Reclamation efforts had a measurable influence on some species abundance. Human-commensal species increased in abundance with increasing disturbance, which may have increased species richness and rarity in our active and reclaimed sites. The community composition in reclaimed areas more closely resembled undeveloped habitat (control), than active development areas. Terrain roughness was the most consistently influential variable on abundance, and we recommend that this often overlooked habitat variable be included in future studies. The habitat variables that represent where we can most easily target reclamation efforts (e.g., herbaceous cover) had minimal influence on abundance.