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导致世界各国重新投资太阳能和风能等替代能源。加拿大是推动绿色能源的领头羊之一，风能装机容量位居世界第七。但风能的应用引起了科学家和公众的共同关注。这些担忧最明显地围绕着与风力涡轮机相关的鸟类和蝙蝠死亡问题，因此关于风力发电场影响的大部分研究都集中在飞行动物上。然而，最近的风能开发提案引起了人们对生活在风力发电场的海龟的担忧。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。爬行动物和两栖动物被认为是最濒危的动物，了解它们如何与绿色能源开发相互作用对于保护它们是至关重要的。我们项目的目的是通过评估生活在安大略省北部王子风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两栖动物群落和生活在远离涡轮机的社区的生态方面。我们将与Brookfield Renewable合作收集这些数据，这些数据将用于为他们的风力发电场制定生物多样性政策，包括普林斯设施。我们的项目将为Brookfield和其他公司提供独特的数据，这些数据可以用来制定和实施缓解策略，以应对加拿大各地目前正在运营的和未来的风能开发。

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.