ANTHROPOGENIC NIGHTLIGHT AND NOISE EFFECTS ON FEEDERWATCH BIRD ABUNDANCE AND DISTRIBUTION

Ashley A Wilson; California Polytechnic Institute; awilso76@calpoly.edu; Clinton D. Francis, Neil H. Carter, Jesse R. Barber

Anthropogenic nightlight and noise (ANLN) alter animal physiology, behavior, and life history by masking biologically relevant cues. Whether these changes scale up to affect broad-scale patterns of distributions with respect to ANLN exposure is an open question. We used continental-wide geospatial ANLN data obtained from the National Park Service's Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division to determine whether these stimuli alter distributions of species at bird feeders measured through Project FeederWatch from 2004-2012. We controlled for several macroecological variables that reflect urbanization impacts, such as human population density from the Gridded Population of the World (GPWv4) dataset and percent impervious surface from the National Landcover Database. By comparing long-term patterns of spatial and temporal variation in bird species, we expect to see a general decline in habitat use and abundance in areas with greater ANLN disturbance for most bird species. Preliminary analyses suggest that noise negatively affects the distributions of most species and was consistently a stronger predictor of abundance than other measures of urbanization. Managers can improve habitat quality by modifying anthropogenic activities to decrease the amount of disturbance birds experience.

Ecology and Conservation of Birds I     Student Paper