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

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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.