Learning from the past to predict the future: using archaeological findings and GPS data to quantify reindeer sensitivit
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Learning from the past to predict the future: using archaeological findings and GPS data to quantify reindeer sensitivity to anthropogenic disturbance in Norway Manuela Panzacchi • Bram Van Moorter Per Jordhøy • Olav Strand
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Received: 27 January 2012 / Accepted: 22 August 2012 / Published online: 4 September 2012 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012
Abstract Norwegian wild reindeer Rangifer tarandus tarandus are divided into 23 virtually isolated populations, primarily due to the abandonment of traditional migration and movement corridors caused by the development of infrastructures. By conducting a nation-wide, interdisciplinary pre-post study on a temporal scale spanning centuries, we modelled current reindeer movements with respect to archaeological findings to quantify long-term changes in area use related to anthropogenic disturbance. The location of 3,113 pitfall traps and hunting blinds, built 600–2000 years ago and used until 350–400 years ago, testified the location of traditional movement corridors. Current movement routes were delineated using Brownian Bridge Movement Models based on 147 reindeer GPS-monitored during 10 years. Using Path Analysis we quantified direct, indirect and total effects of different infrastructures within multiple scales (1, 5, and 10 km-radius buffers) on the current probability of use of ancient movement corridors. Tourist cabins and roads had the strongest long-term direct effects at most scales: 1 tourist cabin and 1 km
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10980-012-9793-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. M. Panzacchi (&) B. Van Moorter P. Jordhøy O. Strand Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, Tungasletta-2, 7485 Trondheim, Norway e-mail: [email protected]
road within a 1 km-radius buffer would lead, respectively, to complete area abandonment, and to a 46 % decrease in the probability of use. Power lines and private cabins had significant indirect effects on area use through their effect on roads, while hiking trails and, in particular, hydroelectric dams had highly variable effects, not significant at a nation-wide scale. Finally, we provide a flexible tool to estimate the potential long-term direct and cumulative effects of different types of infrastructures at the desired spatial scale to be used for the development of future sustainable land management plans. Keywords Landscape connectivity Historic ecology Anthropogenic disturbance Migration corridors Infrastructures Roads Dams Cabins Power lines Cumulative effects
Introduction In a world inhabited by 7 billion people and in which the development of infrastructures is closely tracking population growth, understanding the impact of human activities on wildlife is of paramount importance for the conservation and management of landscapes and biodiversity. Notwithstanding the rapidly increasing amount of studies on the effects of anthropogenic disturbance, a comprehensive ap
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