Van Der Kolk, Henk-jan, Smit, Cor J., Allen, Andrew M., Ens, Bruno J., and van de Pol, Martijn (2024) Frequency‐dependent tolerance to aircraft disturbance drastically alters predicted impact on shorebirds. Ecology Letters, 27. e14452.

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Abstract

Anthropogenic disturbance of wildlife is increasing globally. Generalizing impacts of disturbance to novel situations is challenging, as the tolerance of animals to human activities varies with disturbance frequency (e.g. due to habituation). Few studies have quantified frequency-dependent tolerance, let alone determined how it affects predictions of disturbance impacts when these are extrapolated over large areas. In a comparative study across a gradient of air traffic intensities, we show that birds nearly always fled (80%) if aircraft were rare, while birds rarely responded (7%) if traffic was frequent. When extrapolating site-specific responses to an entire region, accounting for frequency-dependent tolerance dramatically alters the predicted costs of disturbance: the disturbance map homogenizes with fewer hotspots. Quantifying frequency-dependent tolerance has proven challenging, but we propose that (i) ignoring it causes extrapolations of disturbance impacts from single sites to be unreliable, and (ii) it can reconcile published idiosyncratic species- or source-specific disturbance responses.

Item ID:	83676
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1461-0248
Copyright Information:	This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2024 The Author(s). Ecology Letters published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Date Deposited:	18 Sep 2024 22:03
FoR Codes:	31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3103 Ecology > 310301 Behavioural ecology @ 100%
SEO Codes:	18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1802 Coastal and estuarine systems and management > 180201 Assessment and management of coastal and estuarine ecosystems @ 100%
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