Abstract Facing the growing demand for renewable energy sources, the use of wind energy has been significantly increasing worldwide. Wind farms are known to present low environmental impact and their impact on bird fauna has been the most studied and discussed. In this study, we evaluated the composition of bird communities and changes in land use during three phases of wind farm development: pre-construction, construction and operation. Secondary data was obtained on bird communities, provided by the wildlife monitoring report submitted to the state environment agency of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The total number of species recorded for all phases of wind farm construction was 163 species. One hundred species were present during all phases, and 20 were recorded during at least two phases, 32 species were exclusive to the pre-construction phase, four species were recorded only during the construction phase and seven recorded during the operation phase. The evaluation of bird community structure revealed that the pre-construction phase differed from the 4 years of operation, indicating that an impact on bird species' composition is evident, but more detailed and longer surveys are needed to confirm this trend. The bird community responded to landscape changes, mainly due to the reduction of native and exotic forest cover, in areas affected by wind farms installation and operation, in both, species' composition and environmental guilds. Analysis of secondary data allows us to evaluate which changes may have resulted from the implantation of the wind energy industry to the regional bird fauna, and our findings demonstrates tha the changes associated with the construction and operation of this wind farm have negatively affected the bird community.

中文翻译：

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风电场安装后鸟类物种组成的变化：南美洲的案例研究

摘要 面对日益增长的可再生能源需求，风能的利用在全球范围内显着增加。众所周知，风电场对环境的影响很小，它们对鸟类的影响是研究和讨论最多的。在这项研究中，我们评估了风电场开发的三个阶段（预建、建设和运营）期间鸟类群落的组成和土地利用的变化。二级数据来自鸟类群落，由提交给巴西南里奥格兰德州环境机构的野生动物监测报告提供。风电场建设所有阶段记录的物种总数为 163 种。在所有阶段都存在 100 种，至少在两个阶段记录了 20 种，32 种是施工前阶段独有的，仅在建造阶段记录了四种，在运营阶段记录了七种。鸟类群落结构评估显示，建设前阶段与运营4年不同，表明对鸟类物种组成的影响是明显的，但需要更详细和更长时间的调查来证实这一趋势。鸟类群落对景观变化做出反应，主要是由于在受风电场安装和运营影响的地区，物种组成和环境行会中本地和外来森林覆盖的减少。对二手数据的分析使我们能够评估风能产业对区域鸟类动物群的植入可能导致哪些变化，