Migration is a critical behavioral strategy necessary for population persistence and ecosystem functioning, but migration routes have been increasingly disrupted by anthropogenic activities, including energy development. Wind energy is the world's fastest growing source of electricity and represents an important alternative to hydrocarbon extraction, but its effects on migratory species beyond birds and bats are not well understood. We evaluated the effects of wind-energy development on pronghorn migration, including behavior and habitat selection, to assess potential effects on connectivity and other functional benefits including stopovers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFClimate warming creates energetic challenges for endothermic species by increasing metabolic and hydric costs of thermoregulation. Although endotherms can invoke an array of behavioural and physiological strategies for maintaining homeostasis, the relative effectiveness of those strategies in a climate that is becoming both warmer and drier is not well understood. In accordance with the heat dissipation limit theory which suggests that allocation of energy to growth and reproduction by endotherms is constrained by the ability to dissipate heat, we expected that patterns of habitat use by large, heat-sensitive mammals across multiple scales are critical for behavioural thermoregulation during periods of potential heat stress and that they must invest a large portion of time to maintain heat balance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPreserving connectivity in the core of a species' range is crucial for long-term persistence. However, a combination of ecological characteristics, social behavior, and landscape features can reduce connectivity among wildlife populations and lead to genetic structure. Pronghorn (), for example, exhibit fluctuating herd dynamics and variable seasonal migration strategies, but GPS tracking studies show that landscape features such as highways impede their movements, leading to conflicting hypotheses about expected levels of genetic structure.
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