Abstract
We believe that in tropics we need a community approach to evaluate road impacts on wildlife, and thus, suggest mitigation measures for groups of species instead a focal-species approach. Understanding which landscape characteristics indicate road-kill events may also provide models that can be applied in other regions. We intend to evaluate if habitat or matrix is more relevant to predict road-kill events for a group of species. Our hypothesis is: more permeable matrix is the most relevant factor to explain road-kill events. To test this hypothesis, we chose vertebrates as the studied assemblage and a highway crossing in an Atlantic Forest region in southeastern Brazil as the study site. Logistic regression models were designed using presence/absence of road-kill events as dependent variables and landscape characteristics as independent variables, which were selected by Akaike's Information Criterion. We considered a set of candidate models containing four types of simple regression models: Habitat effect model; Matrix types effect models; Highway effect model; and, Reference models (intercept and buffer distance). Almost three hundred road-kills and 70 species were recorded. River proximity and herbaceous vegetation cover, both matrix effect models, were associated to most road-killed vertebrate groups. Matrix was more relevant than habitat to predict road-kill of vertebrates. The association between river proximity and road-kill indicates that rivers may be a preferential route for most species. We discuss multi-species mitigation measures and implications to movement ecology and conservation strategies.
Highlights
Collisions between vehicles and vertebrates have been studied in temperate countries for many decades (Forman et al, 2003; Van der Ree et al, 2011)
The diversity of species killed in collisions with vehicles is higher in tropics, and the conservation issues may become more relevant than security ones, especially in protected areas (Dornas et al, 2012; Garriga et al, 2012)
For the presence/absence of road‐kill, we considered a set of candidate models containing four types of simple regression models: 1) Habitat effect model (H) including forest cover (H1), because in Atlantic Forest the predominant habitat is tropical forest; 2) Matrix types effect models (M), including distance of the nearest river (M1), herbaceous vegetation cover (M2), crop fields (M3) and urban area (M4); 3) Highway effect model (H), including road density (H1); and two Reference models (R), which did not contain the other effects, but only the intercept (R0) or the variable considering buffer distance (Rb)
Summary
Collisions between vehicles and vertebrates have been studied in temperate countries for many decades (Forman et al, 2003; Van der Ree et al, 2011). The road-kill vertebrate community in tropics is more diverse and small-sized than from temperate region; the consequences of the collisions may be different, especially regarding security issues (Dornas et al, 2012; Huijser et al 2009). In North Hemisfere countries, collisions with large-sized mammals often cause serious accidents, including loss of human lives or substantial material damages for the driver (Huijser et al, 2009; Seiler, 2005). The diversity of species killed in collisions with vehicles is higher in tropics, and the conservation issues may become more relevant than security ones, especially in protected areas (Dornas et al, 2012; Garriga et al, 2012)
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