A meta-analysis investigating the effects of energy infrastructure proximity on grouse demography and space use

The increased global demand for energy will require additional tools to
help guide policy and management actions to conserve wildlife. Grouse
(Tetraoninae) are adversely affected by infrastructure associated with
energy development, but the magnitude of effects are difficult to quantify
in a singular management prescription. Advancement in monitoring and
analysis techniques have allowed researchers to evaluate complex questions
surrounding the effects of infrastructure on grouse populations, rapidly
increasing our knowledge. To better inform management decisions,
especially with the emergence of renewable energy, a quantitative
synthesis of previous research evaluating the effects of infrastructure on
grouse populations is needed.  We reviewed studies evaluating the
effect of energy infrastructure on grouse, with the main objective to
determine the magnitude of effect on grouse lek attendance, resource
selection, and survival to help inform future conservation actions. We
modeled slope coefficients for distance to energy infrastructure,
standardized by scale, on various behaviors to determine overall effect
sizes in a meta-analysis. We used 93 study-result combinations from 21
studies that directly evaluated resource selection, survival, or lek
attendance relative to energy infrastructure. Trends in overall effect
sizes suggest an adverse effect of distance to energy infrastructure on
grouse behavior; however, the combination of non-significant pooled
regression slopes and high among-study heterogeneity suggest the effect of
distance to energy infrastructure is context dependent. While distance to
infrastructure is a common metric used in many grouse management plans,
our results suggest distance to infrastructure may not be a reliable
predictor of grouse behavior and the effect is context dependent making
management prescriptions based solely on distance to infrastructure in a
one size fits all approach difficult.  Our analysis points to
numerous aspects that scientists can improve upon by evaluating density in
conjunction with distance to energy infrastructure as well as reporting
the necessary statistics for future meta-analyses.