Chapter 8
Cross-scale Changes in Bird Behavior
Around a High Speed Railway: From
Landscape Occupation to Infrastructure
Use and Collision Risk
Juan E. Malo, Eladio L. García de la Morena, Israel Hervás,
Cristina Mata and Jesús Herranz
Abstract Large-scale transportation infrastructures, such as high-speed railway
(HSR) systems, cause changes in surrounding ecosystems, thus generating direct
and indirect impacts on bird communities. Such impacts are rooted in the individual
responses of birds to infrastructure components, such as habitat occupancy of
railway proximities, the use of structural elements (e.g., perching or nesting sites),
flights over the railway, and behavior towards approaching trains. In this chapter,
we present the most important results of several studies that were carried out on bird
communities, between 2011 and 2015 on a 22-km stretch of HSR built on an
agrarian landscape in central Spain. Available data describe the abundance and
spatial distribution of birds up to 1000 m from the railway, bird infrastructure use
(e.g., embankments, catenaries), cross-flights of the railway obtained through focal
sampling, and animal responses to approaching trains recorded from train cockpits.
These data depict how bird species respond at various scales to the presence of the
HSR, and show how the infrastructure impacts bird communities, due to both
habitat changes and increases in mortality risk.
Keywords Agrarian steppe Á Avian mortality Á Community homogenization Á
Disturbance Á Environmental impact assessment Á Flight initiation distance Á
Habitat degradation Á Road-kill
J.E. Malo (&) Á I. Hervás Á C. Mata Á J. Herranz
Terrestrial Ecology Group, Departamento de Ecología,
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, C. Darwin 2, 28049 Madrid, Spain
e-mail: je.malo@uam.es
E.L. García de la Morena
SECIM, Servicios Especializados de Consultoría e Investigación Medioambiental,
C. Segura 2, 28410 Manzanares el Real, Madrid, Spain
© The Author(s) 2017
L. Borda-de-Água et al. (eds.), Railway Ecology,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57496-7_8
117
Cross-scale Changes in Bird Behavior
Around a High Speed Railway: From
Landscape Occupation to Infrastructure
Use and Collision Risk
Juan E. Malo, Eladio L. García de la Morena, Israel Hervás,
Cristina Mata and Jesús Herranz
Abstract Large-scale transportation infrastructures, such as high-speed railway
(HSR) systems, cause changes in surrounding ecosystems, thus generating direct
and indirect impacts on bird communities. Such impacts are rooted in the individual
responses of birds to infrastructure components, such as habitat occupancy of
railway proximities, the use of structural elements (e.g., perching or nesting sites),
flights over the railway, and behavior towards approaching trains. In this chapter,
we present the most important results of several studies that were carried out on bird
communities, between 2011 and 2015 on a 22-km stretch of HSR built on an
agrarian landscape in central Spain. Available data describe the abundance and
spatial distribution of birds up to 1000 m from the railway, bird infrastructure use
(e.g., embankments, catenaries), cross-flights of the railway obtained through focal
sampling, and animal responses to approaching trains recorded from train cockpits.
These data depict how bird species respond at various scales to the presence of the
HSR, and show how the infrastructure impacts bird communities, due to both
habitat changes and increases in mortality risk.
Keywords Agrarian steppe Á Avian mortality Á Community homogenization Á
Disturbance Á Environmental impact assessment Á Flight initiation distance Á
Habitat degradation Á Road-kill
J.E. Malo (&) Á I. Hervás Á C. Mata Á J. Herranz
Terrestrial Ecology Group, Departamento de Ecología,
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, C. Darwin 2, 28049 Madrid, Spain
e-mail: je.malo@uam.es
E.L. García de la Morena
SECIM, Servicios Especializados de Consultoría e Investigación Medioambiental,
C. Segura 2, 28410 Manzanares el Real, Madrid, Spain
© The Author(s) 2017
L. Borda-de-Água et al. (eds.), Railway Ecology,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57496-7_8
117