Below is a press release about the Methods paper ‘An interim framework for assessing the population consequences of disturbance‘ taken from the University of St Andrews:

A team of scientists from the University of St Andrews has developed a new desktop tool for assessing the impact of noise from human disturbance, such as offshore wind development on marine mammal populations.

The team, led by Prof. John Harwood, have developed the interim Population Consequences of Disturbance (PCoD) framework for assessing the consequences of human induced noise disturbance on animal populations. The study was published yesterday in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution.

Changes in natural patterns of animal behaviour and physiology resulting from animals being disturbed may alter the conservation status of a population if the activity affects the ability of individuals to survive, breed or grow. However, information to forecast population-level consequences of such changes is often lacking. The project team developed an interim framework to assess impacts when empirical information is sparse. Crucially, the model shows how daily effects of being disturbed, which are often straightforward to estimate, can be scaled to the duration of disturbance and to multiple sources of disturbance.

“We have developed a novel framework that can be used to broadly forecast the consequences of anthropogenic disturbance on animal populations, which in principal can be applied to a range of marine and terrestrial species and different types of disturbance.” – Dr Stephanie King

One important application for the interim PCoD framework is in the marine industry. Many industries use practices that involve the generation of underwater noise. These include shipping, oil and gas exploration, defence activities and port, harbour and renewable energy construction. Continue reading →