COS 4-3 - Sharing a crowded planet: COVID-19 lockdowns reveals the dynamic footprint of human activity on wildlife

Monday, August 7, 2023

2:00 PM – 2:15 PM PDT

Location: B114

Presenting Author(s)

RO

Ruth Oliver

Assistant Professor
University of California Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California, United States

Coauthor(s)

Sy

Scott W. yanco

Yale University, United States
DE

Diego Ellis-Soto

Yale University, Connecticut, United States
BJ

Brett Jesmer

Virginia Tech, United States
WJ

Walter Jetz

Professor
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut, United States

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic, and widespread changes in human mobility patterns, offered an unprecedented opportunity to disentangle the relative impacts of anthropogenic activity on wildlife behavior. We quantified the influence of human landscape modification and the dynamic presence of humans on wildlife space and resource use for 40 species of birds and mammals across the United States. We found that individuals behaviorally responded to changes in human presence by adjusting the amount of space they used, in many cases driving them to rely on a broader array of resources. We estimated that current human activity in the United States is driving some species to vastly contract the area they are willing to access and others to double the area they need to cover (-88% to 110%). Our work highlights human mobility as a largely underappreciated, yet important driver of wildlife behavioral responses to anthropogenic change.