EolPop, a R-shiny tool for quantifying the demographic impact of species exposed to fatalities: Application to bird collisions with wind turbines.

Quantifying the demographic impact of anthropogenic fatalities on animal populations is a key component of wildlife conservation. However, such quantification remains rare in environmental impact assessments (EIA) of large-infrastructure projects, partly because of the complexity of implementing demographic models. Providing user-friendly demographic tools is thus an important step to fill this gap. We developed an application called EolPop to run demographic simulations and assess population-level impacts of fatalities. This tool, freely available online, is easy to use and requires minimal input data from the user. As an output, it provides an estimate, with associated uncertainty, of the relative deficit in population size at a given time horizon. Because this impact metric is relative to a baseline scenario without fatalities, it is robust to uncertainties. We showcase the tool using examples on two species that are affected by collisions with wind turbines: Lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni) and Eurasian skylark (Alauda arvensis). After 30 years, the kestrel's population is expected to suffer a deficit of ca. 48%. In contrast, the impact on skylarks, which are already declining in France, is estimated to be fairly low (ca. 7%). EolPop aims at providing a robust quantification of the relative impact of fatalities. This tool was originally built for windfarm EIA, with a focus on birds, but it can be used to assess the demographic consequences of any type of fatalities on any species.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)