University of Alberta Road effects on Banff National Park bird community composition and on the age distribution and health of male Ruby-crowned Kinglets and Red-breasted Nuthatches by Manon Cecile Dube A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Ecology Biological Sciences Edmonton, Alberta Fall 2008 Library and Bibliotheque et 1*1 Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-47207-1 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-47207-1 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, prefer, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non­ sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. •*• Canada Abstract Roads affect bird populations in a variety of direct and indirect ways. I assessed these potential effects by comparing community diversity and attributes of individual health at sites near to (50 m) and far from (400 m) a highway and a secondary road near Banff, Canada. The health measures targeted two species - red-breasted nuthatches and ruby- crowned kinglets - for which I recorded age, body mass, fluctuating asymmetry and four hematological measures. Community composition differed by habitat (aspen was more diverse than pine and spruce habitats) whereas road type and road proximity had lesser and interacting effects. Proportionately more young red-breasted nuthatches lived near the highway, but no health parameter varied with road proximity for either species. Overall, the road effects I detected were slight, suggesting either that birds are not much affected by roads at this site, or that my near and far sites were equally affected by road presence. Acknowledgements First, I would like to thank Colleen Cassady St. Clair for giving me the chance to work in her lab and for helping me along this endeavour. Thank you also for graciously offering me your own data to work on for the first part of this thesis. I would also like to thank my committee members, Erin Bayne and Glen Hvenegaard, for offering their advice during the course of this thesis. This study was funded by the grant from the Alberta Sport, Recreation, Parks and Wildlife Foundation to M. Dube and the grants from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation together with a Natural Science and Engineering Council (NSERC) Discovery Grant to C. C. St. Clair. M. Dube was funded in part by a Canada Graduate Scholarship. I am indebted to Parks Canada for allowing me to conduct field work in Banff National Park and for generously providing housing. Thank you also to Chris Sturdy for letting me use his lab facilities and microscope. Thank you to Samantha Fischer for being such a wonderful field assistant. Your continuous enthusiasm and hard work carried me through these long hours in the field and through the ferocious mosquito attacks. Thank you to all my lab members for their expertise, support and friendship. A special thank you to Darren Proppe for learning with me the intricacies of leukocytes identification and for spending countless hours looking at slides in my company. Lastly, thanks to Steven Dedesko who has been my better half since the start. Thank you for sitting through hours of tedious talks simply to make me feel better; without your continuous support and encouragement, this thesis would not be. Thank you to all my friends for always being there when I needed you and un merci tout special a mes parents pour avoir laisse leurfille unique demenager en Alberta en poursuite de ses etudes et pour, comme dans tout ce quej 'ai entrepris au cours de ma vie, m 'avoir offert votre eternel amour et soutien. Table of Contents Abstract Acknowledgements Chapter 1 -Introduction to the Thesis 1 References ,..6 Chapter 2 - Effects of highway proximity on the composition of a montane bird community in Banff National Park, Canada 12 Introduction 12 Methods 15 Study area 15 Field censuses 15 Statistical analyses 16 Results 19 Discussion 23 References 39 Chapter 3 - Effects of a high-traffic road on the age and health of males for two passerine species 46 Introduction 46 Methods 49 Study site 49 Protocol and sampling 49 Statistical analyses 51 Results 52 Discussion 54 References 65 Chapter 4 - General Discussion 72 References 79 List of Tables Chapter 1 No Tables Chapter 2 Table 2.1. Common and scientific names with a classification of species into nesting, foraging and song frequency guilds for all bird species surveyed through point counts in Banff National Park 30 Table 2.2. PERMANOVA on the bird community composition of Banff National Park for the three main variables of interest (road, habitat, distance) and their interactions. 33 Table 2.3. Significant Chi-square tests on the summed abundance of individual species where PERMANOVA results on the whole bird community of Banff National Park had distance to the road or road type as significant factors, alone or within an interaction 34 Chapter 3 Table 3.1. Fluctuating asymmetry expressed as both FA4 and FA5 indices, directional asymmetry, skewness and kurtosis of the difference between the right and left ninth primaries of Red-breasted Nuthatches and Ruby-crowned Kinglets living near to and far from the road 60 Chapter 4 No Tables List of Figures Chapter 1 No Figures Chapter 2 Figure 2.1. Noise meter readings in dB (mean ± SD) as a function of two road types (highway and secondary road) and two road distances (50 and 400 m) 35 Figure 2.2. Species richness and associated SD obtained from point counts in Banff National park as a function of habitat type (Aspen, Spruce, Pine) and road distance (near, far). Road type (highway, secondary road) was combined when estimating means since they did not differ significantly (a). Maximum abundance obtained through point counts in Banff National park as a function of habitat type (aspen, spruce, pine) and road distance (near, far) for the secondary road (b) and the highway (c) 36 Figure 2.3. NMS ordinations of the bird community in Banff National Park showing axis two and axis three of a three-dimension best solution. These axes were chosen to best represent visual segregation of the interspersion. The interspersion shows a segregation of the community composition per habitat types with aspen stands being the most distinct (a). The interspersion of sites reveals no segregation by road distance (b) or road type (c). The ordination of sites shows an interacting effect of habitat and road type (d) as well as habitat and distance to the road (e) 38 Chapter 3 Figure 3.1. Number of male birds in each age class captured in Banff National Park as a function of road proximity (approximately 50 versus approximately 400 m) for (a) Red-breasted Nuthatch and (b) Ruby-crowned Kinglet 61 Figure 3.2. Body mass of Red-breasted Nuthatches obtained from mist net captures near to and far from the road in Banff National Park as a function of PCI values where 2 high PCI values indicate small body size and vice versa (near: P = 0.01, r adj = 0.33; 2 far: P = 0.18, r adj = 0.05) 62 Figure 3.3. Ratio of heterophils to lymphocytes as a function of road distance (approximately 50 versus approximately 400 m) in Ruby-crowned Kinglets and Red- breasted Nuthatches obtained from mist net captures in Banff National Park 63 Figure 3.4. Heterophil to lymphocyte ratios obtained from mist net captures in Banff National Park as a function of Julian date of (a) Ruby-crowned Kinglets (P = -0.009, fe. 2i = -2.04, P = 0.05) and (b) Red-breasted Nuthatches (3 - 0.004, t = 0.74, df = 35, P = 0.46 64 Chapter 4 No figures Chapter 1 - Introduction to the Thesis Habitat loss and fragmentation transform unbroken habitats into a mosaic of small parcels that are isolated from one another (Hunter 2002). These changes are typified by a decrease in patch size and an increase in patch isolation (Andren 1994), which can eventually lead to population declines and local extinctions (Wettstein and Schmid 1999, Reed 2004). An important source of habitat fragmentation is anthropogenic causes (Hunter 2002) and the associated ecological processes that have been altered by fragmentation have been studied extensively in agricultural and forestry related contexts (see Andren 1994, Fahrig 2003, Cushman 2006, Ewers and Didham 2006 for reviews).