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"I was very lucky because I was allowed to go out. In March, during the first week of Italy's strict lockdown, ecologist Francesca Cagnacci of the Edmund Mach Foundation's Research and Innovation Centre got special permission to visit field sites in the forests around Trentino, where she has been tracking deer and other animals with radio collars and a few camera traps.
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The anthropause has prompted some researchers to quickly modify existing studies. And they are checking whether low-flying species became more common near roads, which might imply fewer collisions with cars. One question they are asking is whether species known to be less tolerant of noise, such as yellow-rumped warblers, became more abundant around airports. Working with data from eBird, a citizen science project run by Cornell University's Lab of Ornithology, the researchers are examining bird communities in 95 U.S. Koper, who wasn't able to get to her field sites this spring because of the pandemic, has brought together a separate team of 16 researchers to explore the same kinds of questions for 85 bird species in Canada and the United States. Among other things, researchers will be investigating whether animals changed their movement patterns during the hiatus-crossing roads more frequently, for example, or venturing out at unusual times, such as during daylight rather than just at night. "There is a gold mine of data," says Christian Rutz of the University of St.
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More than 300 researchers have indicated they have relevant animal tracking data from 180 species of birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, and sharks across almost 300 study populations from all continents and oceans. The International Bio-Logging Society, for example, is coordinating a large effort to assess how reduced vehicle, ship, and aircraft traffic is affecting animal behavior. "A lot of people are coming together to ask really big, complex questions," says Nicola Koper, a conservation biologist at the University of Manitoba. In particular, the pause has created unique natural experiments, allowing researchers to compare how animals behaved before, during, and after the pandemic. Others are pooling data on animal movement, gathered from GPS tracking devices and automated cameras, to probe large-scale responses to emptier roads and airports. Some are tracking how fish, mammals, and even iguanas are reacting to steep declines in tourism. The study, which received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) this week, is just one example of how wildlife scientists are now working to understand the impacts of what many are calling the "anthropause"-the dramatic slowdown in human activity caused by the pandemic.
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Lockdowns had dramatically reduced noisy boat traffic, which can stress marine life, and he and his colleagues were soon discussing how to investigate the whales' response to the hiatus. He was stressed, but after returning home Friedlaender realized the pandemic offered an unprecedented opportunity for similar studies of whales in nearby Monterey Bay. Science' s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation.Īfter the coronavirus pandemic exploded worldwide, Ari Friedlaender, a marine ecologist at the University of California (UC), Santa Cruz, had to abandon his fieldwork in Antarctica, where he was studying the effects of tourism and fishing on humpback whales.