1. Introduction
Among human-caused impacts to natural systems, some of the most challenging to address are those that are incremental, widespread, and cumulative. Exurban development, or rural sprawl, on private land is prevalent throughout much of the world [
1,
2], and its impacts, generally perceived as relatively low [
3,
4,
5,
6], are less well-known than those associated with urban and suburban contexts [
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12]. It often appears relatively benign: a ranchette in a river valley here, a retirement home in the woods there; cumulatively, however, exurban development is altering landscapes 10 times faster than urban and suburban sprawl combined [
12]. The prevalence of this form of development makes the likelihood of emergent patterns high.
Exurban development is frequently driven by amenity migration. With new technologies enabling work from remote locations, highly valued private lands in close proximity to natural and protected areas in the US have become attractive for second-home development and/or amenity migration [
13,
14]. These private lands, including areas near the Adirondack State Park (ADK) in New York State and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) in the state of Montana, USA, are often more ecologically productive than public lands because of their low elevation and high soil productivity [
15,
16] but are susceptible to exurban development because of their natural beauty, privacy, and accessibility to nature [
17,
18,
19,
20,
21,
22,
23,
24]. More than 90% of all US federally threatened and endangered flora and fauna have some or all of their habitat on non-federal land [
25] and private lands adjacent to protected areas are therefore critical to biodiversity protection. Moreover, exurbanization near protected areas hardens the boundaries, which hinders species movement and contributes to isolation, especially for terrestrial vertebrates [
26]. As conservationists and legislators call for the protection of 30% of lands by 2030 as a way to stem biodiversity loss and mitigate the effects of climate change [
27,
28,
29], understanding the ways in which human development impacts lands surrounding protected areas can lead to strategies for private land protection that can contribute to meeting this ambitious goal.
Despite the misconception that, because most of the physical area taken up by exurban development remains in the original ecosystem type, the effects on biological diversity are relatively benign [
30], increasing evidence suggests that exurbanization may result in altered wildlife behavior [
31,
32], altered wildlife species composition [
3,
33,
34,
35], and decreased biotic integrity [
36]. However, most studies are site or species-specific. It is likely that the effects of exurban development on biodiversity differ among ecosystems and understanding the types of ecosystems that are relatively vulnerable to exurban development is an important need [
5].
Early North American work on exurban development and its impacts was disproportionately centered in the Rocky Mountain west [
3,
4,
30], and the extent to which conclusions from this work could apply to eastern temperate forest systems was unknown. Landscape heterogeneity may confer stability to landscapes and buffer populations against environmental change, relative to organisms in landscapes that are more homogeneous, as has been suggested by a number of researchers [
37,
38,
39,
40] and supported by studies on crickets [
41], amphibians [
42], and butterflies [
43]. George and Dobkin [
44] suggested that avian populations in parts of the Western US have contended with natural heterogeneity for thousands of years and may be less affected by fragmentation processes such as exurban development than avian populations of the relatively more homogeneous landscapes of the pre-European-settlement Eastern US. We previously examined changes in breeding bird community structure in exurban subdivisions and control areas between the Adirondack Park in northern NY and the Madison Valley, MT of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) [
45] and predicted that, given its greater landscape structural diversity, the GYE would be less sensitive and demonstrate fewer changes to bird communities as a result of exurban development than would the Adirondacks. Despite our predictions, we found similar responses to development among several avian guilds across these distinct regions. In a separate study in the Adirondack Park [
46], we detected a similar building effect distance [
3,
47] associated with exurban residential homes in the Adirondacks as those previously detected by Odell and Knight [
3] in Colorado. The similarity of these findings suggests that the types and levels of human activity surrounding homes may play an equal or more important role in explaining patterns than purely structural habitat differences wrought by exurban development [
48].
In the current study, we built on our previous work in these diverse ecosystems and combined sociological and ecological approaches on a larger scale to examine human impacts on biological communities. Specifically, we examined whether it is possible to generalize across ecosystems the human activities (e.g., gardening, cutting trees, leaving barking dogs outside, maintaining trails, outdoor lighting) and habitat structure that are associated with characteristics of breeding birds in exurban developments. While socio-economic models have begun to characterize and predict exurbanization (e.g., [
49,
50]), few models have been developed to predict how the actions of individual landowners will influence biotic distributions. Some researchers have emphasized the importance of including human-dominated landscapes in addressing and potentially promoting the conservation of species [
51,
52,
53]. This idea is not new: Aldo Leopold recognized the importance of private land stewardship and indicated the importance of “a conviction of individual responsibility for the health of the land” [
54] (p. 221). However, the specific relationship among stewardship activities, human behaviors, and breeding bird community characteristics remains unclear. As a result, planners and resource managers struggle to assess and manage the potential impacts of exurban residential growth on species and ecosystems.
We examined breeding bird communities in exurban subdivisions and ecologically similar control areas in Essex County, NY and Madison County, MT. We combined ecological data collection with a social survey to characterize landowners’ practices and behaviors that may influence wildlife communities around their homes. Our objectives were to compare (1) the effects of exurban development on avian communities between two diverse landscapes, and, (2) the relative roles of habitat structure, resource provisioning, and human disturbance in influencing avian habitat use within exurban residential areas in both landscapes.
4. Discussion
We examined the effects of exurban development on avian communities across diverse landscapes and compared the relative roles of habitat structure, resource provisioning, and human disturbance in influencing avian habitat use. In contrast to previous findings, our study revealed differential patterns of response to subdivisions between diverse ecosystems in the eastern and western US. In the Adirondack Park, more than half (61%) of the species examined exhibited differential use of subdivisions and control sites, the majority with higher predicted use of control sites than residential areas. In the GYE, contrastingly, only 17% of species responded to the subdivision treatment at all, and all had higher predicted use in subdivisions than control sites. These findings are similar to those of Farr et al. [
70], who compared habitat use for 16 bird species between conservation subdivisions and undeveloped areas in northern Colorado, USA and found that 81% of tested species exhibited similar habitat use between subdivisions and undeveloped sites.
It is possible that developments within naturally patchy landscape mosaics exhibit less change in biotic community composition than developments within naturally homogenous landscapes because typical residential developments more closely resemble patchy mosaics. In addition to being characterized by a larger number of small habitat patches relative to the Adirondack Park [
45], lot sizes in the GYE, and in fact, throughout much of the intermountain western US, are much larger than those in the Northeast US. As a result, houses are spaced much more widely on the landscape. It is possible that in these western systems, the potential benefits associated with scattered houses on the landscape outweigh their negative impacts. Bock and Bock [
71] discuss the importance of scale in the context of clustered vs. dispersed housing patterns and point out that, at large enough scales, exurban home sites may function as ecological oases or resource supply points, providing assets such as shade and water in otherwise open, arid environments where such features are scarce. Such an “oasis effect” was suggested as an explanation for higher species richness and abundance of birds in exurban neighborhoods relative to undeveloped areas in southeastern Arizona [
72] and “anthropogenic refugia” have also been suggested as important to mediating the climate-related decline of Belding’s ground squirrels in California [
73]. The patchy distribution of resources available around exurban homes in the GYE may more closely resemble the naturally patchy habitat structure in that landscape as a whole.
The lower degree of contrast between individual bird species’ use of developed and undeveloped areas in the GYE is also potentially the result of the prevalence of ranching. Evidence of prior grazing activity was present on a number of our count locations on control sites in the GYE. These sites are likely to differ from other control sites in the GYE on which recreation is the primary activity, though the degree to which they represent a departure from their historical characteristics is probably dependent on the extent to which bison once ranged in the same areas [
71]. In general, the challenge associated with locating control sites with comparable ecological characteristics in the western landscape was higher than that in the east. In the GYE, the common pattern of concentrated rural residences in productive valley bottoms and public ownership of less productive mountain settings [
5] is more pronounced than in the Adirondack Park, where protected lands are interspersed with private ownership throughout the region and control sites of similar ecological characteristics to residential areas are more often located in close proximity. The variability of control site characteristics may have also contributed to the overall apparent lack of a strong subdivision effect in the GYE.
In addition to assessing the relative sensitivity of different ecosystem types to exurban development, we also sought to understand the factors that influence bird habitat use within subdivisions themselves. We examined the importance of habitat context, habitat structure, resource provision or alteration, and potential disturbance and their influence on bird habitat use in exurban residential areas. In both the eastern and western systems, we found that natural habitat characteristics were more important than localized human-influences relating to resource provision or potential disturbance around a home site. Larger proportions of species in both landscapes responded to variables describing the context and structure of the available natural habitat (e.g., elevation, canopy cover, tree and shrub density) than to variables describing the alteration or provision of resources (e.g., maintaining a lawn, provisioning of water or food resources) or to those describing potential disturbances (e.g., reported activity of outdoor pets, reported potential disturbance associated with noise or outdoor lighting). Though working at a larger scale in Colorado, Farr et al. [
70] similarly found that characteristics describing context and availability of habitat explained a larger proportion of the variability in bird habitat use within exurban subdivisions than did characteristics relating to disturbances or resource subsidies. In the Lake Tahoe Basin of California and Nevada, USA, Schlesinger et al. [
48], also found that landscape-level vegetation characteristics were most important in explaining patterns of bird abundance, but that disturbance from human activity was more important in explaining overall species richness.
Habitat characteristics were important to birds at both the parcel level and at the sample point scale. At the larger scale, within 100 m of the sample point, elevation and overall habitat diversity were important, as well as the proportion of conifer (Adirondacks) and shrub (GYE) present. Elevation and conifer cover were largely positive influences in the Adirondacks, potentially because both are associated with a number of Neotropical migrant and/or conifer forest species which may increase in representation in association with these characteristics, adding to the overall species diversity and contrasting with more general and human-adapted species that were common in most locations. In the GYE, elevation had a mixed effect on bird habitat use, possibly reflecting relatively harsher conditions associated with higher elevations in western landscapes. In the west, the overall diversity of habitats available was a positive influence on several species. Sites in the west in general were characterized by a broader diversity of habitat types while those in the east were dominated by hardwood forest interspersed with small amounts of coniferous forest. At the parcel level, the availability of a variety of habitat types is likely to increase overall species richness in both landscapes [
74].
Landowners may be more likely to influence the structure of habitats at ground level and we found that numerous species were influenced by vegetation characteristics at the location of our sampling points. In both eastern and western study sites, tree density was important and generally a positive influence on birds. Not unexpectedly, responses of birds to structural habitat characteristics varied across species and the range of responses is most likely reflective of the broader habitat context of each privately owned parcel and the extent to which particular habitat features are more or less common in the surrounding landscape. Landowners can use this information to influence the habitat around their home toward benefiting a particular suite of birds if they so desire. Like urbanization, exurbanization is known to be associated with the homogenization of the avian and other wildlife communities [
75,
76]. Landowners who wish to counteract the general trend of selection toward more common and generalist species can potentially do so by promoting habitat characteristics that are beneficial to more sensitive species. In the Adirondacks, this may include planting or maintaining coniferous species and maintaining high tree and snag density near homes. In the GYE, more sensitive species may benefit from maintaining a diversity of habitats at the parcel scale, including shrub cover, and keeping a high density of trees, including those of large diameter, near homes. Grassland and western forest biomes are among those experiencing the largest avifaunal declines on the North American continent [
77]. The GYE has a number of species whose regional trends indicate moderate to significant large declines including dusky flycatcher, mountain chickadee, western meadowlark, and savannah sparrow [
78] which may respond to such habitat management.
Equally important to understanding habitat characteristics that benefit birds, perhaps, is to examine the potential role of human activities and disturbances and, in particular, those which can negatively impact birds in exurban landscapes. We examined the influence of resource provision/alteration and potential human disturbance and, though less influential on bird habitat use and community structure than natural habitat characteristics, found these factors to impact birds in several ways. The number of structures associated with individual homes in the Adirondacks was negatively associated with a number of species but had little influence in the GYE. In both landscapes, the top two structures observed in association with homes were outdoor seating and/or a deck or gazebo. Given that the most oft-observed structures outside of the homes themselves were structures associated with human activity, it is possible that structures serve as a proxy for levels of potential human disturbance and may be negatively associated with some bird species. It is also possible, however, that some structures provide nesting or protective cover for either birds themselves or their potential nest predators. In addition to adding structures, humans also modify habitats around exurban homes in a variety of ways. The most commonly observed habitat structural alterations in both the eastern and western landscapes were lawns and landscaping which had little effect in the GYE and mixed effects in ADK. Lawns in the Adirondacks tend to produce hard edges in the heavily forested region that often serve to attract some species but deter others who are more sensitive to fragmentation effects [
46]. Forest-field edges are also used as travel corridors by generalist nest predators such as raccoons [
79,
80] and may therefore increase vulnerability for some bird species.
Other potential forms of resource alteration include the provisioning of food and water sources. A variety of potential food sources was noted in both landscapes (e.g., outdoor grill, fruiting shrubs/trees, vegetable gardens, compost, garbage) and their effect on habitat use was generally small. Some potential food sources will benefit birds but others may be important attractants for bird nest predators including generalist mammals that associate with human habitats such as rodents, foxes, and black bears [
81,
82,
83]. Glennon and Porter [
84] found higher abundances of both grey squirrel and red squirrel in areas of residential development relative to undeveloped old growth and managed forest sites in the Adirondacks. Both species, in addition to being associated with bird feeders and other human food sources, are common nest predators [
85] and birds nesting low to the ground may be particularly vulnerable.
Water is important to birds and may be an important attractant in arid landscapes [
86]. Anthropogenic water sources were relatively sparse among ownerships in both landscapes, with birdbaths and “other” water sources (e.g., pet water dish, outdoor shower) most common, while pools, hot tubs, and water troughs or stock tanks were less commonly observed. Water sources provided by humans were a universally positive effect in the Adirondacks, associated with increased habitat use by the blue jay, dark-eyed junco, and red-breasted nuthatch. In the GYE, only one species—the green-tailed towhee—exhibited a relationship with water and its response was negative. The general lack of response to water in the GYE was somewhat surprising and its reasons are unclear given the importance of this resource to birds and the relative scarcity of water in this landscape relative to the Adirondack Park.
In addition to resource alteration, humans also potentially create disturbances to wildlife communities in association with their activities around homes. We used reported information from our landowner survey to investigate the potential impact of disturbance via pets, noise, lights, and outdoor human activity. Responses to these factors were generally small but nevertheless revealed interesting patterns. Dogs were by far the most commonly reported pet present at homes in the Adirondacks (41% of homes) and in the GYE (67% of homes), followed by cats and a small number of other animals including horses and chickens (
Table 4). With respect to potential disturbance associated with pets, cats were largely reported as indoor pets and so disturbance can be attributed primarily to dogs being outside with or without their owners. Interestingly, pets had a universally positive influence in the Adirondacks while their influence was mixed in the GYE. The positive association of reported pet activity in the eastern landscape was somewhat unexpected but, if the most activity is attributable to dogs as reported, may be the result of the effects that dogs have on potential mammalian nest predators. Soulé et al. [
87] postulated the notion of mesopredator release to explain higher predation rates on chaparral-requiring bird species in California resulting from the absence of coyotes which normally exert numerical control over smaller predators such as foxes and domestic cats. Domestic dogs interact with and affect biodiversity in a number of ways [
88] and have been shown to reduce the richness and abundance of birds [
89]. They have also been shown to suppress the activity of small mammals [
90]. It is possible that, in some circumstances, birds who are tolerant of disturbance by dogs may also benefit from reduced activity of nest predators such as rodents that are affected negatively by dogs in exurban environments. Among the species showing a positive association with reported pet activity were a handful of those closely associated with human environments including the American crow, American goldfinch, and blue jay in the Adirondacks and brown-headed cowbird in the GYE. Dogs were more prevalent in the GYE and reported to spend time outdoors more frequently than in the Adirondacks, which may contribute to the mixed response of birds in that landscape. It is likely that more sensitive species in both landscapes may be less tolerant to dog activity in association with rural residences.
Like pet activity, reported nighttime lighting behaviors also demonstrated some unexpected positive associations. Nighttime lights were positively associated with one species in ADK and were positively associated with two species in the GYE. Again, here it is important to note that the information reflected in this variable came from reported behaviors of landowners with respect to their tendency to leave a variety of indoor and outdoor lights on at varying times of the evening. The ecological impacts of lights at night are broad and research into this field is somewhat new and rapidly growing [
91]. For birds, much concern is associated with the impact of lights on night-migrating birds although light has also been shown to alter singing behavior for at least one passerine species [
92]. In both landscapes, the nighttime lighting disturbance reported by landowners was associated with either outdoor or indoor lights being on in the evening, while far fewer owners reported having lights on overnight or in the early morning. Therefore, potential disturbance from lights is relatively low. The positive association of lights with a small number of species is unexpected, but like pets, the possibility exists that lights left on in the evenings deter or alter activity patterns of other species, particularly potential mammalian nest predators, in some way that may benefit birds. Our own efforts to measure lights at night in these subdivisions using sensitive light meters resulted in very little detectable light and little useable data, reassuring us that exurban residential areas in both landscapes are generally quite dark.
The remaining two disturbances we investigated for their potential influence on birds were noise and human activity. Though related to one another, our survey questions attempted to parse out the impacts that might be associated with noise resulting from anthropogenic sources such as lawn mowing, playing music outdoors, and small or large construction projects from the disturbance that may result from humans themselves being active in the outdoors around their homes (e.g., eating meals outside, walking dogs, walking trails, kids playing). Responses to reported noise and human activity were mixed. In response to noise, four species, all of which are human-adapted (American crow, American goldfinch, blue jay, cedar waxwing), responded positively in the eastern landscape, while one species responded negatively (blue-headed vireo). In the GYE, the response to reported noise was smaller and split between one positive response (brown-headed cowbird) and one negative (green-tailed towhee). The ecological consequences of disturbance to wildlife from noise, like light, is rapidly growing as a research field and, similarly, established impacts have primarily been studied in association with broad-scale and chronic loud noise sources rather than the kinds of noise associated with rural residential development. Although there is abundant evidence for negative wildlife impacts associated with chronic noise exposure [
93,
94] and both density [
95] and diversity [
96] of bird communities have been shown to be responsive to noise impacts, studies have also revealed surprising results. Francis et al. [
97], for example, found that noise associated with gas well compressors positively influenced nest survival for birds because predators (in this case Western scrub jay
Aphelocoma californica) were less likely to occupy noisy sites. The frequency of bird vocalizations is known to influence the degree to which they may be sensitive to noise. Because most anthropogenic noise is relatively low frequency, it is thought that birds who vocalize at higher frequencies may be less susceptible to masking from anthropogenic noise sources than birds who vocalize at lower frequencies [
98]. In general, the GYE landscape may be more acoustically favorable to birds because of its more open character, but this may also make it more likely that anthropogenic structures in these open environments degrade overall sound quality. Kight et al. [
98] found that persistence of tones was higher and reverberation was lower in more open grassy habitats and that the addition of open habitat can improve the acoustic space of singing birds. These qualities may make birds less susceptible to noise disturbance in the western landscape.
Like noise, reported human activity had relatively little impact on birds but did demonstrate a negative relationship with 2 species in the Adirondack landscape and a split response between brown-headed cowbird (positive) and mourning dove (negative) in the GYE. Among the most commonly reported human activities by landowners in both landscapes were walking dogs and hiking trails and so it is possible that some of the response to human activity is also represented in the pets category. Nevertheless, the response of birds to outdoor human activity was relatively modest and possibly a disturbance with which birds around exurban homes can more easily adapt, particularly if it is regular and predictable.