Clarke Jamie F, Bron Larissa, Carlson Madison, Labiy Sophia S, Penno Zoe, Webster Hayley, Fisher Jason T, Dyck Marissa A
School of Environmental Studies University of Victoria Victoria British Columbia Canada.
Department of Biology University of Victoria Victoria British Columbia Canada.
Ecol Evol. 2025 Aug 18;15(8):e71904. doi: 10.1002/ece3.71904. eCollection 2025 Aug.
Energy extraction and development are fragmenting the landscape in Canada's oil sands region, creating patches of boreal forest connected by millions of kilometers of cleared linear features. The impacts of oil and gas disturbance on some wildlife species, like caribou and wolves, have been a topic of much research; yet, the influence of energy development on other species, like coyotes-which have recently expanded into the boreal forest and established strong populations-is not well understood. Here, we assessed the effects of linear features on coyote distribution and interspecific interactions by deploying camera traps across multiple landscapes of varying energy disturbance intensities. Using an information theoretic approach, we tested hypotheses about the effects of linear feature type and density, natural feature coverage, and prey and competitor relative abundances on coyote monthly occurrence. High densities of wide linear features and high relative abundances of small mammal prey and large competitors best predicted coyote occurrence, whereas natural features had a negative effect. Selection for higher densities of these features suggests that wide linear clearings, like roads and geo-survey seismic lines, provide movement paths for coyotes as they do for wolves, although they may also provide prey subsidies. Snowshoe hare and red squirrel prey, but not ungulates, had a strong positive effect on coyote occurrence, although coyote-prey relationships could shift with the hare cycle. Coyotes appeared to co-occur with wolf and lynx competitors, perhaps through shared use of abundant resources and temporal segregation or mediated by large coyote populations-and potentially indicating a departure from top-down coyote suppression by dominant heterospecifics. Energy development has fundamentally reshaped the boreal forest of Canada's oil sands region, giving way to landscapes that support generalist, range-expanding species like coyotes and altering community dynamics.
能源开采与开发正在分割加拿大油砂地区的地貌，形成一片片北方森林斑块，这些斑块由数百万公里的砍伐线性特征连接起来。石油和天然气干扰对一些野生动物物种（如北美驯鹿和狼）的影响一直是众多研究的主题；然而，能源开发对其他物种（如郊狼，它们最近已扩展到北方森林并建立了强大的种群）的影响却尚未得到充分了解。在此，我们通过在多个具有不同能源干扰强度的景观中部署相机陷阱，评估了线性特征对郊狼分布和种间相互作用的影响。我们采用信息论方法，检验了关于线性特征类型和密度、自然特征覆盖度以及猎物和竞争者相对丰度对郊狼月度出现情况影响的假设。宽线性特征的高密度以及小型哺乳动物猎物和大型竞争者的高相对丰度最能预测郊狼的出现，而自然特征则有负面影响。对这些特征更高密度的选择表明，宽阔的线性空地（如道路和地质勘探地震线）为郊狼提供了移动路径，就像它们为狼提供的一样，尽管它们也可能提供猎物补贴。雪鞋兔和红松鼠猎物（而非有蹄类动物）对郊狼的出现有强烈的积极影响，尽管郊狼与猎物的关系可能会随着野兔数量周期而变化。郊狼似乎与狼和猞猁竞争者共同出现，这可能是通过共享丰富的资源和时间上的隔离，或者是由大量郊狼种群介导的，并且这可能表明占主导地位的异种对郊狼自下而上的抑制作用有所偏离。能源开发从根本上重塑了加拿大油砂地区的北方森林，让位于支持像郊狼这样的泛化种、分布范围不断扩大的物种的景观，并改变了群落动态。
