Erin M. Bayne

• B.Sc (Hons.), M.Sc., PhD.
• Professor (Full) at University of Alberta

Alberta’s boreal forest is extensively dissected by different energy sector activities, especially the creation of linear features such as seismic lines, pipelines, and transmission lines. Linear features vary substantially from one another in terms of time since disturbance, vegetation recovery, and levels of human use. Linear feature width has gr...

An inherent challenge with acoustically surveying birds is that the distance at which they can be detected depends on how far their song can be heard. We developed a distance-based sound detection space truncation method to correct for variable sampling radii due to surveying in forested or open conditions. The method was pivotal in evaluating bird...

To recover species at risk, it is necessary to identify habitat critical to their recovery. Challenges for species with large ranges (thousands of square kilometres) include delineating management unit boundaries within which habitat use differs from other units, along with assessing any differences among units in amounts of and threats to habitat...

As old-growth forest ecosystems become increasingly scarce in North America, the need to accurately and efficiently survey old-growth specialists and keystone species, such as the Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus), becomes increasingly important. A common survey method for birds is to detect auditory cues to determine presence. Therefore, it...

Context: Industrial development in Canada’s boreal forest creates cumulative environmental effects on biodiversity. Some effects may be scale-dependent, creating uncertainty in understanding and hindering effective management. Objectives: We estimated cumulative effects of energy sector development on distributions of sixteen migratory songbird sp...

Human-caused disturbances are encroaching on natural areas and quantifying the relative effects of different types of disturbance, and whether they interact on a landscape to create additive or synergistic cumulative effects, will provide a better understanding of how wildlife are affected. We evaluated potential cumulative effects of industrial di...

To recover species at risk, it is necessary to identify habitat critical to their recovery. Challenges for species with large ranges (thousands of square kilometres) include delineating management unit boundaries within which habitat use differs from other units, along with assessing amounts of and threats to habitat over time. We developed a repro...

Conservation approaches that efficiently protect multiple values, such as the umbrella species concept, have been widely promoted with expected dramatic ecosystem changes. Due to its social and cultural importance, and recent declining trends, boreal populations of woodland caribou have been suggested as potential umbrella species for other declini...

Animals of many different species, trophic levels, and life history strategies migrate, and the improvement of animal tracking technology allows ecologists to collect increasing amounts of detailed data on these movements. Understanding when animals migrate is important for managing their populations, but is still difficult despite modelling advanc...

Long-distance migrant songbirds are declining globally. Reversing declines requires a good understanding of habitat quality. Local studies have shown that territory settlement date (arrival) is generally correlated with density and productivity. Despite widespread acceptance, large-scale multispecies demonstrations of arrival time being correlated...

Seismic lines have an extensive footprint in Canada's western boreal forest that alter habitat conditions for many species. Seismic lines exist within a range of seral states due to changing practices and regulations related to operational needs. Forest regeneration is often hindered on seismic lines as they are frequently repurposed for recreation...

Demand for petroleum products is causing habitat loss, alteration, and fragmentation of boreal forests in western Canada. Associated exploratory and extraction activities from in situ oil sands leave a network of (1) permanent polygonal features (e.g., processing facilities, extraction sites, gravel pits); (2) permanent linear features (e.g., roads...

Global wind-energy development has increased exponentially in recent decades and is expected to double in capacity in Canada by 2040. Wind-farm development has significant implications for wildlife, particularly for raptors, where injury or death from turbine strikes and other cumulative effects are well documented. Minimizing conflict is important...

Animal communication is effective when the transmitted signal reaches the receiver and induces a behavioural response. Increases in anthropogenic noise are altering the ways animals communicate. A common adaptation shown by bird species to anthropogenic noise is song frequency shifts, but birds may also adapt their ability to communicate in noisy e...

ContextOil and gas activity is increasing in the western boreal forest of North America. To manage cumulative effects of this industry, a better quantification of footprint effects on wildlife is needed.Objectives We used point-count surveys to evaluate how well footprint amounts within 150 m, and proximity to seismic lines, pipelines, well sites,...

Hunting can influence the abundance and distribution of animals and act as a source of conflict among recreational user groups. Thus, land managers benefit from tools that can generate information about when and where hunting occurs. We used passive acoustic monitoring to examine spatiotemporal patterns of hunting‐related gunshots at 91 locations i...

Context: Industrial development in Canada’s boreal forest creates cumulative environmental effects on biodiversity. Some effects may be scale-dependent, creating uncertainty in understanding and hindering effective management. Objectives: We estimated cumulative effects of energy sector development on distributions of sixteen migratory songbird spe...

For many avian species, spatial migration patterns remain largely undescribed, especially across hemispheric extents. Recent advancements in tracking technologies and high‐resolution species distribution models (i.e., eBird Status and Trends products) provide new insights into migratory bird movements and offer a promising opportunity for integrati...

Climate change refugia are areas that are relatively buffered from contemporary climate change and may be important safe havens for wildlife and plants under anthropogenic climate change. Topographic variation is an important driver of thermal heterogeneity, but it is limited in relatively flat landscapes, such as the boreal plain and prairie regio...

Context Movement is one of the proposed explanations for the scale at which a species responds most strongly to its environment, or the “scale of effect”. Scarcity of empirical evidence for this hypothesis may be because studies determine scale of effect for individual environmental variables; however, seasonal movement is the product of reactions...

Context Oil and gas activity is increasing in the western boreal forest of North America. To manage cumulative effects of this industry, a better quantification of footprint effects on wildlife is needed. Objectives We used point-count surveys to evaluate how well dose-response (amount) and zone-of-impact (distance) models for seismic lines, pipeli...

Anthropogenic noise can create an acoustic environment detrimental for animals that communicate using acoustic signals. Currently, most studies of noise and wildlife come from traffic noise in cities. Less is known about the effects of noise created by industry in natural areas. Songbirds far from cities, but influenced by industry, could be affect...

Yellow Rail (Coturnicops noveboracensis) are a highly specialized wetland obligate bird. They are a species at risk in Canada and very little is known about their abundance in the wet-lands of the western boreal forest. Emerging technologies have enabled us to effectively survey for Yellow Rail and other wetland birds in remote areas by using groun...

The Yellow Rail (Coturnicops noveboracensis) is a secretive marsh bird of conservation concern in Canada. However, the status of this species in northern boreal regions remains largely unknown given uncertainty about population abundance and distribution. This knowledge gap is mainly due to limitations of traditional survey methods to detect this s...

Understanding how disturbance affects species is a critical component of management in the boreal forest, particularly for disturbance specialist species that often help initiate the succession process through seed dispersal, nutrient cycling, and other means. Unfortunately, emulation of natural disturbance rarely incorporates the disturbance respo...

Temperate grasslands are among the most altered biomes worldwide, largely through anthropogenic modification. The rapid construction of renewable energy projects is necessary to accommodate growing energy demands and, when existing projects are upgraded, alterations to associated infrastructure are necessary. The direct effects of these development...

Background Artificial light is ubiquitous in the built environment with many known or suspected impacts on birds. Birds flying at night are known to aggregate around artificial light and collide with illuminated objects, which may result from attraction and/or disorientation. In other contexts, birds are repelled by light-based deterrents, includin...

Understanding the functional significance of bird sounds can provide valuable insight into the behavior and how birds use habitat. We show that the Common Nighthawk (Chordeiles minor) wing-boom display is a territorial signal associated with the nest location that can be used to identify territorial habitat use. In other words, the Common Nighthawk...

In the past decade, a large volume of peer-reviewed papers has examined the potential impacts of oil and gas resource extraction in the Canadian oil sands (OS). A large proportion focuses on terrestrial biology: wildlife, birds, and vegetation. We provide a qualitative synthesis of the condition of the environment in the oil sands region (OSR) from...

Earth observation technologies have strong potential to help map and monitor wildlife habitats. Yellow Rail, a rare wetland obligate bird species, is a species of concern in Canada and provides an interesting case study for monitoring wetland habitat with Earth observation data. Yellow Rail has highly specific habitat requirements characterized by...

Bioacoustics is the study of sound produced by animals, and autonomous recording units (ARUs) are increasingly used to research and monitor birds by recording vocalizations because of the benefits of reduced observer bias and the ability to collect data over longer time scales. We used ARUs to study owl vocal behaviour and habitat use by passively...

Understanding spatial and temporal movement patterns of migratory birds throughout the annual cycle can help identify potential population threats. The behavior and habitat use of birds during migration and stopover periods is particularly understudied in many species. In this study, we used high spatial resolution archival GPS tags to track Rusty...

ABSTRACT: Habitat fragmentation can impede an animal’s ability to move through their habitat, affecting both local and long-distance movements. Each year, polar bears Ursus maritimus migrate to refuge habitats on land or to multiyear ice as annual sea ice breaks up. We used polar bear telemetry location data from 39 adult female polar bears tracked...

Standardized monitoring is critical for conservation because reliable survey data are used to inform the necessity, type, and effectiveness of conservation actions. Many of the avian monitoring data used for conservation are collected by “comprehensive” programs that survey for all species observed; however, there are some species that have low ava...

Many migratory species are declining and for most, the proximate causes of their declines remain unknown. For many long-distance Neotropical migratory songbirds, it is assumed that habitat loss on breeding or non-breeding grounds is a primary driver of population declines. We integrated data collected from tracking technology, community science and...

Geographic variation in song characteristics within songbird species has the potential to reveal some of the complex interactions between ecology and behavior. The Connecticut Warbler (Oporornis agilis) is an uncommon and little studied Neotropical migratory wood warbler that breeds across the southern boreal forest in North America. The song of th...

Anthropogenic development may influence the choices animals make and their resulting reproductive success and survival. If such choices are maladaptive, the impact of anthro-pogenic change can be catastrophic to small or declining populations. Over the past century , Canada's prairie landscapes have been altered dramatically, with over two-thirds o...

Owls can be difficult to detect due to their secretive behavior, typically low calling rate, and low density on the landscape. Low detection probability during surveys can result in an underestimation of the presence and abundance of a species. Thus, optimizing detection probability of surveys targeting owls is necessary to accurately address ecolo...

Migratory connectivity is the degree to which populations are linked in space and time across the annual cycle. Low connectivity indicates mixing of populations while high connectivity indicates population separation in space or time. High migratory connectivity makes individual populations susceptible to local environmental conditions; therefore,...

Acoustic indices combined with clustering and classification approaches have been increasingly used to automate identification of the presence of vocalizing taxa or acoustic events of interest. While most studies using this approach standardize data collection and study design parameters at the project or study level, recent trends in ecological re...

Avian predators vary in their degree-of-threat to chickadees; for example, smaller owls and hawks are of higher threat to chickadees as they can easily maneuver through the trees, while larger predators cannot. We conducted an operant go/no-go discrimination task to investigate the effect of signal degradation on perceived threat. Chickadees were t...

Parent-offspring conflicts arise through the competing efforts of the parents (to optimize their reproductive success) and the offspring (to secure maximum resources for themselves to enhance survival). Competition among siblings in a brood plays a key role in each nestling's relative fitness, particularly in avian species that hatch asynchronously...

Research Highlights: The effects of fire on birds in the most northern parts of the boreal forest are understudied. We found distinct differences in bird communities with increasing fire severity in two vegetation types with naturally different burn severity. The highest severity burns tended to have communities dominated by generalist species, reg...

The Arctic is entering a new ecological state, with alarming consequences for humanity. Animal-borne sensors offer a window into these changes. Although substantial animal tracking data from the Arctic and subarctic exist, most are difficult to discover and access. Here, we present the new Arctic Animal Movement Archive (AAMA), a growing collection...

Ecological “big data” Human activities are rapidly altering the natural world. Nowhere is this more evident, perhaps, than in the Arctic, yet this region remains one of the most remote and difficult to study. Researchers have increasingly relied on animal tracking data in these regions to understand individual species' responses, but if we want to...

Passive acoustic monitoring using autonomous recording units has improved anuran amphibian call survey data collection. A challenge associated with this approach is the time required for audio data processing. Our objective was to develop a more efficient method of processing and analyzing acoustic data through visual spectrogram scanning and the a...

Study of bird microhabitat use is time consuming and labour intensive. Our objective was to present a proof of concept of how emerging, high-resolution bird survey methods can be combined with vegetation data collected via unmanned aerial vehicles to accurately and efficiently quantify bird microhabitat. We used sound localization to determine Mour...

During the 2016 breeding season we monitored 169 nest boxes suitable for Boreal Owl (Aegolius funereus) and Northern Saw-whet Owl (Aegolius acadicus) in high-latitude (>55°N) boreal forests of northwestern Alberta affected by partial logging. Despite the large number of boxes deployed, the number of boxes used by Boreal and Northern Saw-whet Owls w...

Mercury (Hg) emissions have increased since 1950 and biomagnification in Arctic ecosystems can affect animals, particularly at higher trophic levels. Exposure to Hg can negatively affect young developing animals, resulting in altered morphology and ultimately, lower fitness. We examined the relationship of mandible fluctuating asymmetry (FA) with g...

There is interest in linking outputs from land use simulators to bird species distribution models to project how boreal birds will respond to cumulative effects of caribou (Rangifer tarandus) conservation, harvest, fire, and energy-sector development in Alberta. Our hypotheses were: (1) species associated with older mixed-wood stands would decline...

Recent conservation plans for long-distance Neotropical migrant birds have emphasized the importance of understanding the ecology and threats facing a species throughout its life cycle, including migration and overwintering periods. To better understand the ecology of Broad-winged Hawks (Buteo platypterus) during the nonbreeding period, we followed...

The vast boreal biome plays an important role in the global carbon cycle but is experiencing particularly rapid climate warming, threatening the integrity of valued ecosystems and their component species. We developed a framework and taxonomy to identify climate‐change refugia potential in the North American boreal region, summarizing current knowl...

Automated recognition is increasingly used to extract species detections from audio recordings; however, the time required to manually review each detection can be prohibitive. We developed a flexible protocol called “validation prediction” that uses machine learning to predict whether recognizer detections are true or false positives and can be ap...

Estimating the population abundance of landbirds is a challenging task complicated by the amount, type, and quality of available data. Avian conservationists have relied on population estimates from Partners in Flight (PIF), which primarily uses roadside data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS). However, the BBS was not designed to e...

Smaller owls and hawks are high-threat predators to small songbirds, like chickadees, in comparison to larger avian predators due to smaller raptors’ agility (Templeton et al. in Proc Natl Acad Sci 104:5479–5482, 2005). The current literature focuses only on high- and low-threat predators. We propose that there may be a continuum in threat percepti...

Ecology and management programs designed to track population trends over time increasingly are using passive monitoring methods to estimate terrestrial mammal densities. Researchers use motion‐sensing cameras in mammal studies because they are cost‐effective and advances in statistical methods incorporate motion‐sensing camera data to estimate mamm...

Habitat fragmentation occurs when continuous habitat gets broken up as a result of ecosystem change. While commonly studied in terrestrial ecosystems, Arctic sea ice ecosystems also experience fragmentation, but are rarely studied in this context. Most fragmentation analyses are conducted using patch‐based metrics, which are potentially less suitab...

Yellow Rails (Coturnicops noveboracensis) are among the most secretive bird species in North America. They are poorly sampled by common survey protocols, and as a result their occurrence across much of their range is uncertain. We compiled occurrence records of the species and used resource selection functions to classify habitats as selected, neut...

Bioacoustic recordings are often used to conduct auditory surveys, in which human listeners identify vocalising animals on recordings. In these surveys, animals are typically counted regardless of their distance from the survey point. When these surveys are carried out in patchy habitat or near edges, detected individuals may frequently occur in a...

Remote camera traps are often used in large-mammal research and monitoring programs because they are cost-effective, allow for repeat surveys, and can be deployed for long time periods. Statistical advancements in calculating population densities from camera-trap data have increased the popularity of camera usage in mammal studies. However, drawbac...

For male songbirds, song rate varies throughout the breeding season and is correlated with breeding cycle stages. Although these patterns have been well documented, this relationship has not been used to predict a bird's breeding status from acoustic monitoring. This challenge of using a response (i.e., behavior) to indirectly measure an underlying...

Aim Most large‐scale species distribution models assume spatially constant habitat selection throughout a species' geographic range. However, there is evidence this assumption may not be valid for a number of boreal bird species, which could lead to biased predictions of density and distribution in range‐wide models. Our goal was to test for and qu...

Understanding what factors influence the occurrence and distribution across the landscape is necessary for species conservation and management. Distribution data for many owl species are inadequate because of their nocturnal behavior and cryptic nature. We examined the role of climate, land cover, and human disturbance in shaping spatial distributi...

Understanding what factors influence the occurrence and distribution across the landscape is necessary for species conservation and management. Distribution data for many owl species are inadequate because of their nocturnal behavior and cryptic nature. We examined the role of climate, land cover, and human disturbance in shaping spatial distributi...

Aim Wetland loss and degradation threaten biodiversity to an extent greater than most ecosystems. Science‐supported responses require understanding of interacting effects of land use and climate change on wetland biodiversity. Location Alberta, Canada. Methods We evaluated how current climate, climate change (as a ghost of the past), land use and...

In the past, monitoring hunting behavior has been limited to self-reported numbers. However, the ability of autonomous recording units to monitor soundscapes may make them suitable for assessing spatio-temporal shooting patterns. Our goal for this project was to find out if it is possible to use acoustic monitoring to track human activity, and if t...

Anthropogenic disturbance can negatively impact animal populations and alter the behaviour of individuals. Disturbance associated with the energy sector has been increasing in the boreal forest of northern Alberta. Disturbances associated with the oil and gas industry vary in the infrastructure present and sensory stimuli generated. Two common type...

Conservation of amphibian species requires an understanding of both their aquatic and terrestrial habitats. Populations of Canadian Toads (Anaxyrus hemiophrys) may be declining in Alberta, Canada. Information on this species is scarce, particularly for the northeastern boreal ecoregion. Concerns exist that this species may be threatened by growth o...

Reliable estimation of animal abundance is key for science-based conservation. Often the study of species-habitat relationships aims to model mean local abundance along an environmental gradient. Imperfect detection may violate the assumption that estimated abundance is proportional to true abundance at a locality. In recent decades several approac...

Globally and in Canada's boreal forest, extensive deforestation has occurred because of agricultural conversion. However, consequences of forest loss for bird assemblages associated with wetlands and their associated riparian areas and shoreline forests are poorly understood. Using the multivariate approach, Threshold Indicator Taxa Analysis (TITAN...

The Olive-sided Flycatcher (Contopus cooperi) and Canada Warbler (Cardellina canadensis) are threatened landbirds in Canada and parts of the U.S. Both species are subjects of recent conservation and management interest. Protected areas are a key tool for managing populations of species at risk, and Canadian national parks may serve as important ref...

Background Anthropogenic light is known or suspected to exert profound effects on many taxa, including birds. Documentation of bird aggregation around artificial light at night, as well as observations of bird reactions to strobe lights and lasers, suggests that light may both attract and repel birds, although this assumption has yet to be tested....

Stressors created by multiple resource industries can result in cumulative effects over time and space. Many studies have evaluated single stressors and assumed that cumulative effects can be understood by adding stressors together. However, there is growing evidence that interactive effects are important in structuring biological communities. We e...

Oil and gas development alters boreal forests by creating early-successional habitat and an increased amount of edge. We evaluated which small-mammal species used pipeline rights of way, the influence of vegetation recovery on pipelines, and edge effects in the adjacent forest. Meadow voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus (Ord, 1815)) were the most common...

A variety of automated classification approaches have been developed to extract species detection information from large bioacoustic datasets. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are an image classification technique that can be operated on the spectrogram of an audio recording. Using CNNs for bioacoustic classification negates the need for sophis...

Distance sampling is widely used to estimate animal population densities by accounting for imperfect detection of individuals with increasing distance from an observer. Distance sampling assumes that distances are measured without error; however, it is often applied to human estimated distances, which are known to be inconsistent, inaccurate, and b...

Phenological shifts are the most commonly reported ecological responses to climate change and can be produced rapidly by phenotypic plasticity. However, both the limits of plasticity and whether it will be sufficient to maintain local adaptation (or even lead to maladap-tation) are less clear. Increased winter precipitation has been shown to lead t...