Conservation partners are concerned that oil and gas development in the Prairie Pothole Region may reduce the abundance of breeding duck pairs using associated wetland habitat. We conducted wetland-based surveys for breeding pairs of 5 species of dabbling ducks in the Bakken oil field during 2015–2017 across a gradient of oil and gas development intensity to test the hypothesis that the abundance of breeding duck pairs on survey wetlands would decrease as the development of oil and gas resources increased. We included covariates traditionally used to predict breeding duck pairs (i.e. wetland size and class) and a spatiotemporal index of disturbance when developing zero-inflated Poisson models relating pair abundance to environmental predictors. Similar to past analyses, pair abundance was strongly associated with wetland size. Our results were mixed and suggested that the abundance of early and late nesting species was positively and negatively related, respectively, to an index of disturbance that was largely driven by oil and gas development. Regardless of the direction of the relationship, effect sizes were small and not considered biologically significant. Our findings indicate that in our study area, strategies to conserve wetland resources for breeding duck pairs should not deviate from previous prioritization metrics within the range of oil and gas development we observed. We believe that our findings may have implications to similar landscapes within the Bakken.

中文翻译：

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油气开发并未减少草原坑洼地区的鸭对丰度

保护合作伙伴担心，草原坑洼地区的石油和天然气开发可能会减少使用相关湿地栖息地的繁殖鸭对的数量。我们在 2015 年至 2017 年期间对巴肯油田 5 种涉水鸭的繁殖对进行了基于湿地的调查，跨越油气开发强度梯度，以检验调查湿地上繁殖鸭对的丰度将随着时间的推移而减少的假设。油气资源开发力度加大。在开发将配对丰度与环境预测因子相关联的零膨胀泊松模型时，我们包括了传统上用于预测繁殖鸭对（即湿地大小和类别）的协变量和干扰的时空指数。与过去的分析类似，对丰度与湿地大小密切相关。我们的结果好坏参半，表明早期和晚期筑巢物种的丰度分别与主要由石油和天然气开发驱动的干扰指数呈正相关和负相关。无论关系的方向如何，效应量都很小，并且不被认为具有生物学意义。我们的研究结果表明，在我们的研究区域中，为繁殖鸭对保护湿地资源的策略不应偏离我们观察到的油气开发范围内的先前优先级指标。我们相信我们的发现可能对巴肯河内的类似景观有影响。无论关系的方向如何，效应量都很小，并且不被认为具有生物学意义。我们的研究结果表明，在我们的研究区域中，为繁殖鸭对保护湿地资源的策略不应偏离我们观察到的油气开发范围内的先前优先级指标。我们相信我们的发现可能对巴肯河内的类似景观有影响。无论关系的方向如何，效应量都很小，并且不被认为具有生物学意义。我们的研究结果表明，在我们的研究区域中，为繁殖鸭对保护湿地资源的策略不应偏离我们观察到的油气开发范围内的先前优先级指标。我们相信我们的发现可能对巴肯河内的类似景观有影响。