In addition to environmental and biological factors that affect individual responses (e.g. However, not all anthropogenic disturbances are equal. Anthropogenic habitat disturbance can reduce the accessibility of natural resources for wildlife, directly and indirectly increase wildlife mortalities, and also have more subtle effects such as long-term reduction of habitat quality and function, and altered predator-prey dynamics. Habitat disturbance and loss are recognised as key factors in the loss of global biodiversity. MH was also funded by NASA’s Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) grant # NNX15AW71A [ The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: All data files are available from Dryad doi: 10.5061/dryad.7687117.įunding: Part of the National Conservation Plan, this project was undertaken with the financial support of the Government of Canada/Dans le cadre du Plan de conservation national, ce projet a été réalisé avec l’appui financier du gouvernement du Canada (HSP6617, 6699, 7195), the Foothills Landscape Management Forum, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (2013-003), partners of the fRI Research Caribou and Grizzly Bear Programs, and fRI Research [ Animal GPS data were collected as part of research supported by the Government of Alberta (GoA), fRI Research Grizzly Bear Program partners, and funders of graduate research at the University of Alberta and University of Montana. Received: NovemAccepted: MaPublished: April 16, 2018Ĭopyright: © 2018 Finnegan et al. PLoS ONE 13(4):Įditor: Marco Festa-Bianchet, Université de Sherbrooke, CANADA (2018) Natural regeneration on seismic lines influences movement behaviour of wolves and grizzly bears. To reduce wolf response to seismic lines, active restoration tactics like blocking seismic lines and tree planting, along with management of alternate prey, could be evaluated.Ĭitation: Finnegan L, Pigeon KE, Cranston J, Hebblewhite M, Musiani M, Neufeld L, et al. Therefore it remains unknown at what stage of natural regeneration, if any, wolves cease to respond to seismic lines. However our results revealed that seismic lines continue to influence wolf movement behaviour decades after they were built, and even at later stages of regeneration. To reduce wolf movement rate, restoration could focus on seismic lines with vegetation <1 m in height. Grizzly bears may be using seismic lines for movement, but could also be using seismic lines as a source of vegetative food or ungulate prey. These results suggest that wolves use seismic lines for travel during summer, but during winter wolf movements relative to seismic lines could be influenced by factors additional to movement efficiency potentially enhanced access to areas frequented by ungulate prey. Seismic lines with lower vegetation height were preferred by grizzly bears during spring and summer, but there was no relationship between vegetation height and grizzly bear movement rates. During summer, wolves moved towards seismic lines with lower vegetation and also moved faster near seismic lines with vegetation <0.7 m. ![]() ![]() During winter, wolves moved towards seismic lines regardless of vegetation height, while during spring wolves moved towards seismic lines with higher vegetation. We used Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data, and GPS locations, to understand how vegetation and other attributes of seismic lines influence movements of two predators, wolves ( Canis lupus) and grizzly bears ( Ursus arctos). Seismic lines facilitate predator movement, and although vegetation on some seismic lines is regenerating, it remains unknown whether vegetation regrowth is sufficient to alter predator response. One of the most pervasive disturbances within caribou ranges in Alberta, Canada are seismic lines cleared for energy exploration. Habitat restoration is a focus of caribou recovery efforts, with a goal to finding ways to reduce predator use of disturbances, and caribou-predator encounters. Across the boreal forest of Canada, habitat disturbance is the ultimate cause of caribou ( Rangifer tarandus caribou) declines.
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