Road effects on habitat richness of the Greek Natura 2000 network

Ioannis Vogiatzakis,Athanasios Kallimanis,Maria Zomeni,Steanos Sgardelis,Antonios Mazaris,John Pantis,Nefta Votsi

doi:10.3897/natureconservation.1.2086

Abstract

The road network has both positive and negative ecological effects, and understanding these helps identify environmentally preferable solutions for transportation policy and planning. We investigated the relationship between road density and habitat type richness of Greek protected areas. We used digital vector maps of 214 sites included in the Greek Natura 2000 network. We calculated road density for the terrestrial part of each site and correlated it with habitat type richness. Average road density of protected areas (0.377 km/ km2) was significantly lower than the national road density of Greece (0.446 km/km2). We identified 32 sites that were not intersected by roads. These roadless sites were located at mountain tops, at islets, or in remote coastal zones. Overall we found no significant correlation between road density and habitat type richness. We suggest that the effect of road networks on habitat type richness is less apparent at landscapes with long history of human presence, because the landscape (and its habitat diversity) has coevolved with human activities over the past millennia. Our analysis provides a step towards quantifying the effect of road density on the diversity of habitats and consequently on species of conservation interest in international networks of protected areas such as the European Natura 2000 network.

Highlights

Biodiversity loss has settled to one of the major environmental problems of the twenty first century, countries worldwide have proceeded to establish protected areas in order to halt the loss and preserve species and habitats of high conservation value
Our goal was the interpretation of road effects on the ecology of protected areas in Greece, we focused on the effects of road density on habitat richness in Natura 2000 network
The mean road density of the protected areas was significantly lower than the national road density (0.44 km/km2)

Summary

Introduction

Biodiversity loss has settled to one of the major environmental problems of the twenty first century, countries worldwide have proceeded to establish protected areas in order to halt the loss and preserve species and habitats of high conservation value. Like habitat destruction and pollution, are considered a compelling driver of biodiversity loss (Salafsky et al 2008). One of the major human activities affecting biodiversity in protected areas is transportation (Forman and Alexander 1998; Sherwood et al 2003). Roads have been reported to have both positive and negative effects on society, whilst reports on the negative impacts on ecological impacts have been widespread. In urban landscapes roads function as a major driver for socio-economic changes (Zhu et al 2006). Recent studies indicate that the design of new road systems should take into account the bundling of roads instead of the uniform distribution across the landscape (Selva et al 2011)

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Conclusion