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Transport Infrastructure Shapes Foraging Habitat in a Raptor Community
Transport infrastructure elements are widespread and increasing in size and length in many countries, with the subsequent alteration of landscapes and wildlife communities. Nonetheless, their effects on habitat selection by raptors are still poorly understood. In this paper, we analyzed raptors’ for...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2015
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4365038/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25786218 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118604 |
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author | Planillo, Aimara Kramer-Schadt, Stephanie Malo, Juan E. |
author_facet | Planillo, Aimara Kramer-Schadt, Stephanie Malo, Juan E. |
author_sort | Planillo, Aimara |
collection | PubMed |
description | Transport infrastructure elements are widespread and increasing in size and length in many countries, with the subsequent alteration of landscapes and wildlife communities. Nonetheless, their effects on habitat selection by raptors are still poorly understood. In this paper, we analyzed raptors’ foraging habitat selection in response to conventional roads and high capacity motorways at the landscape scale, and compared their effects with those of other variables, such as habitat structure, food availability, and presence of potential interspecific competitors. We also analyzed whether the raptors’ response towards infrastructure depends on the spatial scale of observation, comparing the attraction or avoidance behavior of the species at the landscape scale with the response of individuals observed in the proximity of the infrastructure. Based on ecological hypotheses for foraging habitat selection, we built generalized linear mixed models, selected the best models according to Akaike Information Criterion and assessed variable importance by Akaike weights. At the community level, the traffic volume was the most relevant variable in the landscape for foraging habitat selection. Abundance, richness, and diversity values reached their maximum at medium traffic volumes and decreased at highest traffic volumes. Individual species showed different degrees of tolerance toward traffic, from higher abundance in areas with high traffic values to avoidance of it. Medium-sized opportunistic raptors increased their abundance near the traffic infrastructures, large scavenger raptors avoided areas with higher traffic values, and other species showed no direct response to traffic but to the presence of prey. Finally, our cross-scale analysis revealed that the effect of transport infrastructures on the behavior of some species might be detectable only at a broad scale. Also, food availability may attract raptor species to risky areas such as motorways. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4365038 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-43650382015-03-23 Transport Infrastructure Shapes Foraging Habitat in a Raptor Community Planillo, Aimara Kramer-Schadt, Stephanie Malo, Juan E. PLoS One Research Article Transport infrastructure elements are widespread and increasing in size and length in many countries, with the subsequent alteration of landscapes and wildlife communities. Nonetheless, their effects on habitat selection by raptors are still poorly understood. In this paper, we analyzed raptors’ foraging habitat selection in response to conventional roads and high capacity motorways at the landscape scale, and compared their effects with those of other variables, such as habitat structure, food availability, and presence of potential interspecific competitors. We also analyzed whether the raptors’ response towards infrastructure depends on the spatial scale of observation, comparing the attraction or avoidance behavior of the species at the landscape scale with the response of individuals observed in the proximity of the infrastructure. Based on ecological hypotheses for foraging habitat selection, we built generalized linear mixed models, selected the best models according to Akaike Information Criterion and assessed variable importance by Akaike weights. At the community level, the traffic volume was the most relevant variable in the landscape for foraging habitat selection. Abundance, richness, and diversity values reached their maximum at medium traffic volumes and decreased at highest traffic volumes. Individual species showed different degrees of tolerance toward traffic, from higher abundance in areas with high traffic values to avoidance of it. Medium-sized opportunistic raptors increased their abundance near the traffic infrastructures, large scavenger raptors avoided areas with higher traffic values, and other species showed no direct response to traffic but to the presence of prey. Finally, our cross-scale analysis revealed that the effect of transport infrastructures on the behavior of some species might be detectable only at a broad scale. Also, food availability may attract raptor species to risky areas such as motorways. Public Library of Science 2015-03-18 /pmc/articles/PMC4365038/ /pubmed/25786218 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118604 Text en © 2015 Planillo et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 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 properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Planillo, Aimara Kramer-Schadt, Stephanie Malo, Juan E. Transport Infrastructure Shapes Foraging Habitat in a Raptor Community |
title | Transport Infrastructure Shapes Foraging Habitat in a Raptor Community |
title_full | Transport Infrastructure Shapes Foraging Habitat in a Raptor Community |
title_fullStr | Transport Infrastructure Shapes Foraging Habitat in a Raptor Community |
title_full_unstemmed | Transport Infrastructure Shapes Foraging Habitat in a Raptor Community |
title_short | Transport Infrastructure Shapes Foraging Habitat in a Raptor Community |
title_sort | transport infrastructure shapes foraging habitat in a raptor community |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4365038/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25786218 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118604 |
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