Developing a biodiversity plan for an operational wind farm using community ecology approaches

全球气候变化和化石燃料资源的枯竭促使世界各国投资于替代能源，如太阳能和风能。加拿大是推动绿色能源的国家之一，风能容量在世界上排名第七。但是风能的应用已经引起了科学家和公众的关注。这些问题最值得注意的是与风力涡轮机相关的鸟类和蝙蝠死亡率，因此大多数关于风力发电场影响的研究都集中在飞行动物身上。然而，最近的风能开发提案引起了人们对生活在风电场的海龟的担忧。与鸟类和蝙蝠不同，生活在风力发电场的爬行动物很少被研究。爬行动物，沿着两栖动物，被认为是一些最濒危的动物，健全的了解他们如何与绿色能源发展的相互作用是必不可少的保护。我们项目的目的是通过评估生活在北方安大略王子风力发电场的爬行动物和两栖动物（两栖动物）的种群和群落生态来帮助填补这一知识空白。我们将比较生活在涡轮机附近的群落和远离涡轮机的群落的生态方面。我们将与布鲁克菲尔德可再生能源公司合作，收集这些数据，这些数据将用于为他们的风电场制定生物多样性政策，包括王子设施。我们的项目将为布鲁克菲尔德和其他公司提供独特的数据，可用于制定和实施加拿大各地即时运营和未来风能开发的缓解策略。

Global climate change and depleting fossil fuel resources have caused countries around the world to invest ingreen energy alternatives, such as solar and wind power. Canada is among the countries leading the push forgreen energy, ranking seventh in the world for wind energy capacity. But the application of wind energy hasraised concerns amongst scientists and the general public alike. These concerns have most notably surroundedbird and bat mortalities associated with wind turbines, such that the majority of research about the impacts ofwind farms has focussed on flying animals. However, recent wind energy development proposals have raisedconcerns about turtles living in wind farms. Unlike birds and bats, reptiles living in wind farms have rarelybeen studied. Reptiles, along with amphibians, are considered to be some of the most endangered animals, sounderstanding how they interact with green energy developments is essential to their conservation. The purposeof our project is to help fill this knowledge gap by assessing the population and community ecology of reptilesand amphibians (herpetofauna) living on the Prince Wind Farm in Northern Ontario. We will compareecological aspects of herpetofauna communities living close to turbines with those of communities living farfrom turbines. We will partner with Brookfield Renewable to collect these data which will be used to developtheir biodiversity policy for their wind farms, including the Prince facility. Our project will provide Brookfieldand other companies with unique data that can be used to develop and implement mitigation strategies incurrently-operational and future wind energy developments across Canada.