10.5061/DRYAD.JH9W0VT7F
Ringelman, Kevin
0000-0003-0299-3432
Louisiana State University
Skaggs, Cassandra
Louisiana State University
Loesch, Charles
United States Fish and Wildlife Service
Szymanski, Michael
North Dakota Game and Fish Department
Rohwer, Frank
Delta Waterfowl Foundation
Kemink, Kaylan
Ducks Unlimited
Proximity to oil wells in North Dakota does not impact nest success of
ducks but lowers nest densities
Dryad
dataset
2020
Ducks
nesting data
oil and gas infrastructure
North Dakota
oil wells
oil and gas development
United States Fish and Wildlife Service
https://ror.org/04k7dar27
CDFA# 15.611
United States Department of Agriculture
https://ror.org/01na82s61
LAB94294
2021-02-12T00:00:00Z
2021-02-12T00:00:00Z
en
1999234 bytes
2
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Over the past decade, the United States has seen a rapid increase in oil
and gas extraction from areas where resources were previously thought to
be unrecoverable, particularly the Bakken shale formation in North
Dakota. The Bakken overlaps with the Prairie Pothole Region, the most
critical habitat in North America for breeding ducks, where oil and gas
extraction through hydraulic fracturing has the potential to impact more
than a million duck pairs in the United States alone. Here, we evaluated
the effect of oil and gas development on nesting ducks 2015–2017 across 5
counties in North Dakota. Using data from ~4,000 nests we found that nest
survival was higher at sites composed of a higher percentage of grassland,
and for nests found closer to major roads. We found no effect of any
metric of oil and gas extraction activity on duck nest survival. Using
survival-corrected estimates of nest density, we found higher densities of
nests closer to roads, but lower nest densities at sites surrounded by
more wells. Our top-ranked model indicated that nest density was
predicted to decline by 14% relative to sites with no development, given
the average number of wells (3.15 wells) within 1500 m of a site.
However, within a nesting field, we found no evidence that ducks were
avoiding petroleum-related infrastructure at smaller spatial scales. Our
results indicate mixed effects of oil and gas development on nesting
waterfowl, and highlight both the resiliency of dabbing ducks to
environmental change and the need for additional research on other aspects
of duck breeding biology.
Nesting data were collected by a graduate student and teams of
technicians. Briefly, we drove ATVs parallel through a field with a chain
strung between them. When the chain dragged over the top of a duck nest,
the hen flushed and we located and monitored the nest. Data entry from
nest cards to Excel, analysis in ArcMap, R, and MARK.