A meta-analysis investigating the effects of energy infrastructure proximity on grouse demography and space use

The increased global demand for energy will require additional tools to help guide policy and management actions to conserve wildlife. Grouse (Tetraoninae) are adversely affected by infrastructure associated with energy development but the magnitude of effects are difficult to quantify in a singular management prescription. Advancement in monitoring and analysis techniques have allowed researchers to evaluate complex questions surrounding the effects of infrastructure on grouse populations, rapidly increasing our knowledge. To better inform management decisions, especially with the emergence of renewable energy, a quantitative synthesis of previous research evaluating the effects of infrastructure on grouse populations is needed. We reviewed studies evaluating the effect of energy infrastructure on grouse, with the main objective to determine the magnitude of effect on grouse lek attendance, resource selection, and survival to help inform future conservation actions. We modeled slope coefficients for distance to energy infrastructure, standardized by scale, on various behaviors to determine overall effect sizes in a meta-analysis. We used 93 study-result combinations from 21 studies that directly evaluated resource selection, survival, or lek attendance relative to energy infrastructure. Trends in overall effect sizes suggest an adverse effect of distance to energy infrastructure on grouse behavior; however, the combination of non-significant pooled regression slopes and high among-study heterogeneity suggest the effect of distance to energy infrastructure is context dependent. While distance to infrastructure is a common metric used in many grouse management plans, our results suggest distance to infrastructure may not be a reliable predictor of grouse behavior and the effect is context dependent making management prescriptions based solely on distance to infrastructure in a one size fits all approach difficult. Our analysis points to numerous aspects that scientists can improve upon by evaluating density in conjunction with distance to energy infrastructure as well as reporting the necessary statistics for future meta-analyses.