Data from: Sound settlement: noise surpasses land cover in explaining breeding habitat selection of secondary cavity nesting birds

Birds breeding in heterogeneous landscapes select nest sites by cueing in on a variety of factors from landscape features and social information to the presence of natural enemies. We focus on determining the relative impact of anthropogenic noise on nest site occupancy, compared to amount of forest cover, which is known to strongly influence the selection process. We examine chronic, industrial noise from natural gas wells directly measured at the nest box as well as site-averaged noise, using a well-established field experimental system in northwestern New Mexico. We hypothesized that high levels of noise, both at the nest site and in the environment, would decrease nest box occupancy. We set up nest boxes using a geospatially paired control and experimental site design and analyzed four years of occupancy data from four secondary cavity nesting birds common to the Colorado Plateau. We found different effects of noise and landscape features depending on species, with strong effects of noise observed in breeding habitat selection of Myiarchus cinerascens, the ash-throated flycatcher, and Sialia currucoides, the mountain bluebird. In contrast, percent forest cover less frequently explained habitat selection for those species or had a smaller standardized effect than the acoustic environment. Although forest cover characterization and management is commonly employed by natural resource managers, our results show that characterizing and managing the acoustic environment should be an important tool in protected area management.

在异质景观中繁殖的鸟类会依据多种因素选择巢址，涵盖景观特征、社会信息乃至天敌的存在情况。本研究聚焦于探究人为噪声对巢址占用率的相对影响，并与已知会强烈影响巢址选择过程的森林覆盖度进行对比分析。我们依托新墨西哥州西北部一套成熟的野外实验系统，对巢箱处直接测得的天然气井长期工业噪声以及区域平均噪声开展测定与分析。我们提出假设：巢址及周边环境的高噪声水平会降低巢箱占用率。本研究采用空间配对的对照与实验样地设计布设巢箱，并分析了科罗拉多高原常见的4种次生洞巢鸟类长达4年的巢址占用数据。研究发现噪声与景观特征的影响因物种而异：噪声对灰喉蝇霸鹟（Myiarchus cinerascens）和山蓝鸲（Sialia currucoides）的繁殖生境选择具有显著影响。与之相反，对于这两个物种而言，森林覆盖占比极少能解释其生境选择，或其标准化效应量远低于声学环境的影响。尽管自然资源管理者通常会采用森林覆盖度的表征与管理手段，但我们的研究结果表明，对声学环境进行表征与调控，应当成为保护区管理中的一项重要工具。