Data from: Bird and bat species’ global vulnerability to collision mortality with wind farms revealed through a trait-based assessment

Mitigation of anthropogenic climate change involves deployments of renewable energy worldwide, including wind farms, which can pose a significant collision risk to volant animals. Most studies into the collision risk of species with wind turbines, however, have taken place in industrialized countries. Potential effects for many locations and species therefore remain unclear. To redress this gap, we conducted a systematic literature review of recorded collisions of birds and bats with wind turbines within developed countries. We related collision rate to species-level traits and turbine characteristics to quantify the potential vulnerability of 9538 bird and 888 bat species globally. Avian collision rate was affected by migratory strategy, dispersal distance and habitat associations and bat collision rates were influenced by dispersal distance. For birds and bats, larger turbine capacity (megawatts) increased collision rates, however, deploying a smaller number of large turbines with greater energy output, reduced total collision risk per unit energy output, although bat mortality increased again with the largest turbines. Areas with high concentrations of vulnerable species were also identified, including migration corridors. Our results can therefore guide wind farm design and location to reduce the risk of large-scale animal mortality. This is the first quantitative global assessment of the relative collision vulnerability of species groups with wind turbines, providing valuable guidance for minimizing potentially serious negative impacts on biodiversity.

减缓人为气候变化需要在全球范围内部署可再生能源，其中风力发电场可能对飞行动物构成显著的碰撞风险。然而，目前绝大多数针对物种与风力涡轮机碰撞风险的研究均开展于工业化国家，因此全球诸多区域及物种所面临的潜在影响仍不明晰。为弥补这一研究空白，我们针对发达国家境内记录在册的鸟类、蝙蝠与风力涡轮机碰撞事件开展了系统文献综述研究。我们通过将碰撞发生率与物种性状、涡轮机特性相关联，量化了全球范围内9538种鸟类与888种蝙蝠的潜在脆弱性。鸟类碰撞发生率受迁徙策略、扩散距离及栖息地关联的影响，而蝙蝠碰撞发生率则受扩散距离的调控。针对鸟类与蝙蝠而言，涡轮机装机容量（兆瓦）越高，碰撞发生率也随之升高；不过，采用少量高产能大型涡轮机的部署方案，可降低单位能量产出对应的总碰撞风险，不过当使用最大规格的涡轮机时，蝙蝠死亡率会再度上升。研究还识别出了脆弱物种高度集中的区域，其中包括迁徙廊道。因此，本研究结果可为风力发电场的设计与选址提供指导，以降低大规模动物死亡的风险。本研究是全球范围内首次针对各物种类群与风力涡轮机的相对碰撞脆弱性开展的定量评估，可为尽可能降低对生物多样性的潜在严重负面影响提供极具价值的指导依据。