Abstract
We monitored reptile and bird roadkills in Cerrado–Pantanal landscapes along the Campo Grande to Corumbá highway BR-262. We describe species distribution in different landscape zones, including the first geographic record for Hydrodynastes bicinctus Herrmann, 1804 in the Pantanal basin. The roadkill occurrence of Spizaetus melanoleucus (Vieillot, 1816) is an outstanding record. We recorded 930 individuals belonging to 29 reptile and 47 bird species; 20 of these species are new roadkill records in Brazil. The 8 new records of reptile species include Eunectes notaeus Cope, 1862, Bothrops mattogrossensis Amaral,1925, Dracaena paraguayensis Amaral,1950 and H. bicinctus; and 12 new records of bird species include S. melanoleucus, Heterospizias meridionalis Latham, 1790, Urubitinga urubitinga (Gmelin, 1788), Pulsatrix perspicillata (Latham, 1790), Aramus guarauna (Linnaeus, 1766), and Jabiru mycteria (Lichtenstein, 1819). Richness of road-killed species on the BR-262 highway seemed to be high, reinforcing concerns about wildlife-vehicle collisions where these accidents occur, as they lead to long term and chronic impacts on wildlife and road safety in the Pantanal region.
Highlights
Regarding road ecology, results from road-killed fauna surveys have been useful for recording vertebrate species occurrences and updating geographic distributions of species within different landscapes (Olson et al.2014)
Richness of road-killed species on the BR-262 highway seemed to be high, reinforcing concerns about wildlife-vehicle collisions where these accidents occur, as they lead to long term and chronic impacts on wildlife and road safety in the Pantanal region
Results from road-killed fauna surveys have been useful for recording vertebrate species occurrences and updating geographic distributions of species within different landscapes
Summary
Results from road-killed fauna surveys have been useful for recording vertebrate species occurrences and updating geographic distributions of species within different landscapes (Olson et al.2014). Wildlife-vehicle collisions have negative impacts, roadkills have been used to sample fauna throughout the world (Forman et al 2003) Oftentimes, this situation is tragic for several wildlife groups, when such routes cross natural and poorly protected areas with rich and abundant fauna, as the Brazilian Cerrado and Pantanal (Catella et al 2010). One such road is the federal highway BR-262, especially the 450 km between the cities of Campo Grande and Corumbá in. Large scale spatiotemporal monitoring of regional fauna has provided information about species distribution within different environments, as well as for the Cerrado and Pantanal domains We describe the occurrence of reptiles and birds in the Cerrado–Pantanal landscapes along the highway BR-262 and update the regional geographic distribution of some species
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