SynthesisPloS one2017
Unmanned aircraft systems as a new source of disturbance for wildlife: A systematic review.
Synthesis in PloS one, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 48 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
48 citing papers in PubMed, 308 citations in OpenAlex.
- Behavioural responses of Neotropical raptors to drone approaches to nests.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- A model to quantify the probability of collision between birds and aircraft: Applications for onboard lighting.Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · 2026Article
- Elephant habituation to drones as a behavioural observation tool.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Utilizing thermal imaging drones to investigate sleeping site selection in an arboreal primate.Current zoology · 2025Article
- Thermal drone surveys to detect arboreal fauna: Improving population estimates and threatened species monitoring.Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · 2025Article
- Drones in ecology: ten years back and forth.Bioscience · 2025Article
- Closing the air gap: the use of drones for studying wildlife ecophysiology.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Light tuned to the avian eye elicits early detection and escape from an approaching aircraft.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Terrestrial Spatial Distribution and Summer Abundance of Antarctic Fur Seals (Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Eyes in the sky: Drone monitoring of the largest gharial and mugger populations in the East Rapti River, Chitwan National Park.PloS one · 2025Article
- Best practice guidance for recreational and professional drones near colonial breeding birds.PloS one · 2025Article
- ShetlandsUAVmetry: unmanned aerial vehicle-based photogrammetric dataset for Antarctic environmental research.Scientific data · 2024Article
- Drones as a tool to study and monitor endangered Grey Crowned Cranes (Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with thermal infrared (TIR) sensors are effective for monitoring and counting threatened Vietnamese primates.Primates; journal of primatology · 2023Article
- Drone Observation for the Quantitative Study of Complex Multilevel Societies.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Review
- Deep learning enables satellite-based monitoring of large populations of terrestrial mammals across heterogeneous landscape.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Evidence on the efficacy of small unoccupied aircraft systems (UAS) as a survey tool for North American terrestrial, vertebrate animals: a systematic map.Environmental evidence · 2023Article
- Artificial intelligence for automated detection of large mammals creates path to upscale drone surveys.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- An embarrassingly simple approach for visual navigation of forest environments.Frontiers in robotics and AI · 2023Article
- Towards the fully automated monitoring of ecological communities.Ecology letters · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The use of small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS; also known as "drones") for professional and personal-leisure use is increasing enormously. UAS operate at low altitudes (<500 m) and in any terrain, thus they are susceptible to interact with local fauna, generating a new type of anthropogenic disturbance that has not been systematically evaluated. To address this gap, we performed a review of the existent literature about animals' responses to UAS flights and conducted a pooled analysis of the data to determine the probability and intensity of the disturbance, and to identify the factors influencing animals' reactions towards the small aircraft. We found that wildlife reactions depended on both the UAS attributes (flight pattern, engine type and size of aircraft) and the characteristics of animals themselves (type of animal, life-history stage and level of aggregation). Target-oriented flight patterns, larger UAS sizes, and fuel-powered (noisier) engines evoked the strongest reactions in wildlife. Animals during the non-breeding period and in large groups were more likely to show behavioral reactions to UAS, and birds are more prone to react than other taxa. We discuss the implications of these results in the context of wildlife disturbance and suggest guidelines for conservationists, users and manufacturers to minimize the impact of UAS. In addition, we propose that the legal framework needs to be adapted so that appropriate actions can be undertaken when wildlife is negatively affected by these emergent practices.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.