Avoidance of offshore wind farms by Sandwich Terns increases with turbine density

The expanding use of wind farms as a source of renewable energy can impact bird populations due to collisions and other factors. Globally, seabirds are one of the avian taxonomic groups most threatened by anthropogenic disturbance; adequately assessing the potential impact of offshore wind farms (OWFs) is important for developing strategies to avoid or minimize harm to their populations. We estimated avoidance rates of OWFs — the degree to which birds show reduced utilization of OWF areas — by Sandwich Terns Thalasseus sandvicensis at two breeding colonies in western Europe: Scolt Head (United Kingdom) and De Putten (the Netherlands). We modeled GPS tracking data using integrated Step Selection Functions (iSSFs) to estimate the relative selection of habitats at the scale of time between successive GPS relocations – in our case 10 minutes, in which terns traveled ca. 2 km on average. The foraging ranges of birds from each colony overlapped with multiple OWFs. iSSFs considered distance fr...随着风力发电场作为可再生能源来源的应用规模持续扩张，其可能因碰撞及其他因素对鸟类种群造成负面影响。全球范围内，海鸟是受人类活动干扰威胁最严重的鸟类分类类群之一；充分评估近海风力发电场（offshore wind farms, OWFs）的潜在影响，对于制定策略以规避或减轻对其种群的伤害至关重要。本研究针对西欧两处繁殖种群——英国斯考特角（Scolt Head）与荷兰德普滕（De Putten）——的白嘴端凤头燕鸥（Thalasseus sandvicensis），估算了其对近海风力发电场的规避率：即鸟类对近海风力发电场区域的利用程度降低的比例。我们采用整合步选择函数（integrated Step Selection Functions, iSSFs）对GPS追踪数据进行建模，以估算连续GPS定位间隔（本研究中为10分钟，此时燕鸥平均飞行距离约2公里）尺度下的生境相对选择情况。两个繁殖种群的燕鸥觅食范围均与多处近海风力发电场重叠。整合步选择函数考量了距离[原文未完整呈现]。