Tichodroma (Dec 2016)
Vplyv výstavby lyžiarskych stredísk a zimnej rekreácie na vtáky: rešerš / Effects of building ski resorts and winter recreation on birds: a review
Abstract
Ski tourism negatively affects wildlife in mountain ecosystems. The Slovak society has nowadays faced a rapid increase in number of running ski resorts over whole country. Rigorously designed ornithological studies focused on effects of existing ski resorts on avifauna are lacking, consequently I tried to review existing knowledge on this topic from foreign countries published primarily in database Web of Science. I focused on effects of resorts’ construction and winter recreation on mortality, abundance, species richness, diversity, stress, home ranging behaviour, time budget and foraging ecology of birds. Electric and lift cable lines cause mortality of birds, especially galliforms, and can affect fluctuation patterns and viability of affected populations. Construction of ski slopes negatively affects species richness, diversity and abundance of original bird assemblage of forests and meadows. Edges of ski slopes with forests may cause negative edge effect causing decrease of species richness and diversity of bird assemblages. Winter ski tourism and flushing disturbance evoke high levels of stress hormones in tetraonids that may cause serious physiological symptoms. Presence of urban areas and new food sources provided by visitors for birds (alpine accentor, choughes) in alpine areas may seriously change original home range size, seasonal home range dynamics, time budget activities, habitat selection and foraging ecology of affected populations. Effect of ski industry on birds in Central European countries was studied very unsuffieciently up to now. For most our regions, no sufficient information of the effects on bird assemblages, behaviour and physiology are available to identify the most affected bird populations. Majority of authors from foreign countries (mainly western Europe) concludes that ski resort areas represent suboptimal habitats for most wild birds and development of new ski resorts should be kept outside valuable natural areas.
