Mortality from collision with vehicles is the most visible impact of road traffic on wildlife. Mortality due to roads (hereafter road-kill) can affect the dynamic of populations of many species and can, therefore, increase the risk of local decline or extinction. This is especially true in Brazil, where plans for road network upgrading and expansion overlaps biodiversity hotspot areas, which are of high importance for global conservation. Researchers, conservationists and road planners face the challenge to define a national strategy for road mitigation and wildlife conservation. The main goal of this dataset is a compilation of geo-referenced road-kill data from published and unpublished road surveys. This is the first Data Paper in the BRAZIL series (see ATLANTIC, NEOTROPICAL, and BRAZIL collections of Data Papers published in Ecology), which aims make public road-kill data for species in the Brazilian Regions. The dataset encompasses road-kill records from 45 personal communications and 26 studies published in peer-reviewed journals, theses and reports. The road-kill dataset comprises 21,512 records, 83% of which are identified to the species level (n = 450 species). The dataset includes records of 31 amphibian species, 90 reptile species, 229 bird species, and 99 mammal species. One species is classified as Endangered, eight as Vulnerable and twelve as Near Threatened. The species with the highest number of records are: Didelphis albiventris (n = 1,549), Volatinia jacarina (n = 1,238), Cerdocyon thous (n = 1,135), Helicops infrataeniatus (n = 802), and Rhinella icterica (n = 692). Most of the records came from southern Brazil. However, observations of the road-kill incidence for non-Least Concern species are more spread across the country. This dataset can be used to identify which taxa seems to be vulnerable to traffic, analyze temporal and spatial patterns of road-kill at local, regional and national scales and also used to understand the effects of road-kill on population persistence. It may also contribute to studies that aims to understand the influence of landscape and environmental influences on road-kills, improve our knowledge on road-related strategies on biodiversity conservation and be used as complementary information on large-scale and macroecological studies. No copyright or proprietary restrictions are associated with the use of this data set other than citation of this Data Paper.

Hepatozoon spp. are Apicomplexan protozoa that parasitize a wide diversity of vertebrate hosts. In Brazil, few studies have reported the occurrence of Hepatozoon spp. in rodent species. Additionally, an evaluation of the population structure and distribution of Hepatozoon species over several Brazilian biomes has not yet been performed. The present work aimed to investigate the genetic diversity of Hepatozoon spp. in rodents from 31 genera sampled in five Brazilian biomes. Samples were submitted to PCR assays for Hepatozoon spp. targeting two regions of the 18S rRNA gene. Infection by Hepatozoon spp. was detected in 195 (42.2%) rodents comprising 24 genera. Phylogenetic analyses of 18S rRNA sequences grouped all sequences in the clade of Hepatozoon spp. previously detected in rodents and reptiles, apart from those detected in domestic/wild carnivores. These data raise two non-exclusive hypotheses: (i) rodents play an important role as intermediate or paratenic hosts for Hepatozoon infections in reptiles; and (ii) rodents do not seem to participate in the epidemiology of Hepatozoon infections of domestic/wild canids and felids in Brazil. TCS analyses performed with available 18S rRNA Hepatozoon sequences detected in rodents from Brazil showed the occurrence of six haplotypes, which were distributed in two large groups: one from rodents inhabiting the coastal region of Brazil and Mato Grosso state, and another from rodents from the central region of the country. A wide survey of the South American territory will help to elucidate the evolutionary history of Hepatozoon spp. parasitizing Rodentia in the American continent.

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