Wildfire smoke is likely to have direct health effects on birds as well as influence movement, vocalization, and other avian behaviors. These behavioral changes may affect if and how birds are observed in the wild, although research on the effects of wildfire smoke on bird behavior is limited. To evaluate how wildfire smoke affects detection of birds, we combined data from eBird, an online community science program, with data from an extensive network of air quality monitors in the state of Washington over a 4-year period. We assessed how PM2.5, a marker of smoke pollution, affected the probability of observing 71 bird species during the wildfire seasons of 2015–2018 using bird observations from 62,908 eBird checklists. After accounting for habitat, weather conditions, seasonality, and survey effort, we found that PM2.5 affected the probability of observing 37% of study species. The ambient concentration of PM2.5 was negatively associated with the probability of observing 16 species and positively associated with the probability of observing 10 species, indicating that birds exhibit species-specific behavioral changes during wildfire smoke events that influence how they are observed. Our results suggest that wildfire smoke impacts the presence, availability, and/or perceptibility of birds. Impacts of smoke pollution on human observers, such as impaired visibility, may also influence detection of birds. These results provide a foundation for developing mechanistic hypotheses to explain how birds, and our studies of them, are impacted by wildfire smoke. Given the projected increase in large-scale wildfire smoke events under future climate change scenarios, understanding how birds are affected by wildfire smoke—and how air pollution may influence our ability to detect them—are important next steps to inform wildlife research and avian conservation.

中文翻译：

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野火烟雾影响华盛顿州鸟类的检测

野火烟雾可能对鸟类产生直接的健康影响，并影响运动、发声和其他鸟类行为。这些行为变化可能会影响是否以及如何在野外观察鸟类，尽管关于野火烟雾对鸟类行为影响的研究是有限的。为了评估野火烟雾如何影响鸟类的检测，我们将在线社区科学项目 eBird 的数据与华盛顿州广泛的空气质量监测网络在 4 年期间的数据相结合。我们使用来自 62,908 个 eBird 清单的鸟类观察结果评估了 PM2.5（烟雾污染的标志物）如何影响在 2015-2018 年野火季节观察到 71 种鸟类的概率。在考虑了栖息地、天气条件、季节性和调查工作后，我们发现 PM2. 5 影响了观察 37% 的研究物种的概率。PM2.5 的环境浓度与观察到 16 个物种的概率呈负相关，与观察到 10 个物种的概率呈正相关，这表明鸟类在野火烟雾事件中表现出特定物种的行为变化，这些变化会影响它们的观察方式。我们的研究结果表明，野火烟雾会影响鸟类的存在、可用性和/或可感知性。烟雾污染对人类观察者的影响，例如能见度降低，也可能影响鸟类的检测。这些结果为发展机械假设以解释鸟类以及我们对它们的研究如何受到野火烟雾的影响提供了基础。鉴于未来气候变化情景下大规模野火烟雾事件的预计增加，