Do unpaved, low-traffic roads affect bird communities?

Mammides, Christos; Kounnamas, Constantinos; Goodale, Eben; Kadis, Costas

doi:10.1016/j.actao.2016.01.004

Cited by 15 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 34 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Communication in smaller-bodied species may be more affected by road noise, due to their typically quieter and higher-frequency songs 28,35,36 , and body mass may affect the likelihood of involvement in collisions 33,34 . Habitat generalists may be more able to adapt to disturbance by roads than specialists 37 , and therefore be more likely to utilise roadside habitat, and previous work has shown migratory populations to be reduced around roads more than resident species, possibly due to a more limited ability to adapt to noise 38,39 . In addition, species with reduced abundances around roads may also have smaller national population sizes, either because roads have contributed directly to their declines or because their national scarcity is caused by their inability to tolerate disturbance, which may also manifest itself in an avoidance of roads.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Roads as a contributor to landscape-scale variation in bird communities

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Roads and their traffic can affect wildlife over large areas and, in regions with dense road networks, may influence a high proportion of the ecological landscape. We assess the abundance of 75 bird species in relation to roads across Great Britain. Of these, 77% vary significantly in abundance with increasing road exposure, just over half negatively so. The effect distances of these negative associations average 700 m from a road, covering over 70% of Great Britain and over 40% of the total area of terrestrial protected sites. Species with smaller national populations generally have lower relative abundance with increasing road exposure, whereas the opposite is true for more common species. Smaller-bodied and migratory species are also more negatively associated with road exposure. By creating environmental conditions that benefit generally common species at the expense of others, road networks may echo other anthropogenic disturbances in bringing about large-scale simplification of avian communities.

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Roads as a contributor to landscape-scale variation in bird communities

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Likewise, we focused on paved roads, although there is some evidence that dirt roads may also promote habitat degradation with consequent impacts for some species (Cooke et al, 2020b;Mammides et al, 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Road encroachment mediates species occupancy, trait filtering and dissimilarity of songbird communities

Ascensão¹,

D’Amico

Revilla

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Assessing the road effects on biodiversity is challenging because impacts may depend on both wildlife responses to roads and on the spatial arrangement of roads. We questioned whether an increase in road encroachment i.e., the advancement of roads into non-urban areas, leads to significant changes (positive and negative) in species occurrence, and if so, whether those changes are linked to specific traits related to perturbation sensitiveness, therefore acting as filters that increase the community compositional dissimilarity. Using a large citizen-science dataset of point-counts performed throughout Iberian Peninsula (4,459 unique survey sites), we modelled the effect of road density on the occurrence of common songbirds (n=58), while accounting for potential confounding effects of environment and survey effort. We then tested if species' occurrence patterns would be linked to specific traits related to the ability to cope with human presence. Finally, we assessed how road density affect the community compositional dissimilarity. We estimated 24 (41%) and 12 (21%) species to be negatively and positively affected by roads, respectively. Increased road encroachment was positively related with a higher prevalence of urban dwellers and negatively related with the occurrence of species nesting and foraging on the ground. Furthermore, increasing road density translated into an increasing community compositional dissimilarity, mostly due to species turnover. Our study support previous research showing that roads have different effects on the occurrence of different species, but we revealed that at least three species' traits have a clear relation with such road responses. Such trait filtering is probably causing a high species turnover between songbird communities occurring in roaded and nearby roadless areas. Overall, we found that different species-specific responses to roads translates into changes at the community level. Landscape and road-network management should be conceived acknowledging that roads are contributing to biodiversity changes. As so, building upon the concepts of Land Sharing / Land Sparing, conservation actions should be tailored according to the different species responses e.g., road verge management targeting species having a positive relation with road density; and compensation actions targeting species showing a negative response toward roads.

show abstract

“…For example, roads can increase mortality through collisions with vehicles, or change birds’ behavior and fitness by increasing the levels of noise pollution [ 32 , 35 ]. Even in the cases where roads are rarely used by cars, they can still have a negative effect [ 74 ], by resulting in habitat loss and degradation. Interestingly though, the effect of roads in our study although it was negative it was not large as expected ( Table 3 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The importance of artificial wetlands for birds: A case study from Cyprus

2018

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The degradation of natural wetlands has significant effects on the ecosystem services they provide and the biodiversity they sustain. Under certain conditions, these negative effects can be mitigated by the presence of artificial wetlands. However, the conservation value of artificial wetlands needs to be explored further. In addition, it is unclear how certain anthropogenic variables, such as road networks and hunting reserves (i.e., areas where hunting of birds is prohibited) affect biodiversity in both artificial and natural wetlands. Here, we use data from thirteen artificial and six natural wetlands in Cyprus, to assess their similarities in bird species diversity and composition, and to quantify the relationship between species diversity and the density of road networks, hunting reserves, wetland size, and wetland depth. We found that while on average natural wetlands have more species and support higher abundances, certain artificial wetlands have the potential to support similarly diverse communities. Overall, regardless of the type, larger wetlands, with shallower waters tend to be more biodiverse. The same is true for wetlands surrounded by a higher percentage of hunting reserves and a lower density of road networks, albeit the effect of road networks was weaker. We conclude, from our results, that although the conservation value of natural wetlands is higher, artificial wetlands have the potential to play a complimentary role in the conservation of bird communities, assuming those wetlands have the right characteristics (e.g., in terms of size and depth) and assuming that the disturbances resulting from high-impact human-activities (e.g., hunting) are minimized.

show abstract

Do unpaved, low-traffic roads affect bird communities?

Cited by 15 publications

References 34 publications

Roads as a contributor to landscape-scale variation in bird communities

Roads as a contributor to landscape-scale variation in bird communities

Road encroachment mediates species occupancy, trait filtering and dissimilarity of songbird communities

The importance of artificial wetlands for birds: A case study from Cyprus

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About