Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year. (2017-2018 to 2022-2023)

Industrial activities can influence wildlife in many ways. Infrastructure, including roads, can fragment the landscape and facilitate movement and hunting by predators. Alternatively, noise from infrastructure may have numerous negative impacts on wildlife by reducing attractiveness of nearby habitat, increasing mortality, or disrupting communication. Species that are dependent on acoustic communication, such as songbirds, may be particularly vulnerable to industrial noise. Therefore, oil wells, which have above-ground infrastructure, roads, and noise, may have negative impacts on songbirds. Over the next five years, my Discovery Grant program will focus on effects of oil wells and their noise on two species of grassland songbirds: chestnut-collared longspurs ( Calcarius ornatus ), which are threatened in Canada, and Savannah sparrows ( Passerculus sandwichensis ), which are more widespread.

It is important that we determine whether effects of industrial activities are due to the physical structure itself, or noise from the infrastructure, because strategies for mitigating human impacts on wildlife differ depending on what the reasons are for those impacts. For example, if effects of wells on birds are due to roads, we might reduce their impact by clustering wells together to reduce the number of access roads needed. However, if effects of wells are due to noise, we could reduce their impact by using sound-dampening barrier walls or quieter pump technology. To distinguish effects of noise from the presence of the wells themselves, we will compare sites with and without noise-producing oil wells to sites where we play recordings of noises from wells.

Wells, and the noise from wells, can have many different impacts on birds. Here, we will focus on the reasons for their effects. Very little is understood about survival of grassland songbirds after they leave the nest; we will compare survival of fledglings in sites with and without wells and well noise. Some effects of wells on reproduction, which we discovered in previous research, might be caused by poor nutrition; we will assess effects of wells and noise on prey availability, on the trade-off between foraging and vigilance behaviour, and on body condition. Noise from wells may make it difficult for females to detect and assess the quality of potential mates; we will measure effects of wells and noise on pairing rates and on offspring. Finally, we will conduct experiments to determine whether reducing the volume of well noise, increasing predictability of noise, or replacing traditional well pumps with quieter infrastructure would reduce impacts of wells on grassland songbirds. Cumulatively, our research will help us understand why industrial activity and its noise affects songbirds, so we can determine how to best reduce environmental impacts of human activities.