PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Rob R. Ramey II
AU  - Joseph L. Thorley
AU  - Alexander S. Ivey
TI  - Local and population-level responses of Greater Sage-Grouse to oil and gas and climatic variation in Wyoming
AID  - 10.1101/028274
DP  - 2017 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 028274
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/08/01/028274.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/08/01/028274.full
AB  - Background Relatively few conservation-based studies have explicitly quantified the extent to which population dynamics are consistent with local impacts. The Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) is a large sexually dimorphic tetraonid that is endemic to the sagebrush habitat of western North America. The impacts of oil and gas development at individual leks has been well-documented. However, no previous studies have quantified the population-level response.Methods Hierarchical models were used to estimate the effects of well pad density and climatic variation on individual lek counts and Greater Sage-Grouse management units over 32 years. The lek counts were analysed using General Linear Mixed Models while the management units were analysed using Gompertz State-Space Population Models. The models were fitted in a Maximum Likelihood framework. An information-theoretic approach was adopted.Results Oil and gas was only an important predictor at individual leks. In contrast, regional climatic variation, as indexed by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, was correlated with density changes at both the local and population-level.Conclusions The results suggest that if inter-annual movement among working groups is negligible then the Sage-Grouse populations were able to largely compensate for the local impacts of oil and gas. Wildfile agencies should not base Sage-Grouse regulations solely on the results of local studies and need to account for the effects of regional climatic variation.