Spatial and species‐level predictions of road mortality risk using trait data

González‐Suárez, Manuela; Ferreira, Flávio Zanchetta; Grilo, Clara

doi:10.1111/geb.12769

Cited by 79 publications

(91 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…Therefore, it is important to understand which species are especially vulnerable to roadkill, under which environmental and road conditions roadkill is most prevalent, and how roadkill is spatially distributed. Roadkill does not affect species randomly, as variability in mortality rates between species is linked to species traits; especially those related to movements, microhabitat use, and thermal strategies (González-Suárez, Zanchetta Ferreira, & Grilo, 2018). For example, species that are large and slow-moving are likely to be more prone to becoming the victim of vehicle collision, than species that are small and fast-moving (Forman et al, 2003;González-Suárez et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Roadkill does not affect species randomly, as variability in mortality rates between species is linked to species traits; especially those related to movements, microhabitat use, and thermal strategies (González-Suárez, Zanchetta Ferreira, & Grilo, 2018). For example, species that are large and slow-moving are likely to be more prone to becoming the victim of vehicle collision, than species that are small and fast-moving (Forman et al, 2003;González-Suárez et al, 2018). With regard to species-specific mortality rates, species that have higher local abundances are more likely to be prone to vehicle collision (Forman et al, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Wildlife roadkill patterns in a fragmented landscape of the Western Amazon

Filius

Hoek

Jarrín‐V

et al. 2020

Ecology and Evolution

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One of the most evident and direct effects of roads on wildlife is the death of animals by vehicle collision. Understanding the spatial patterns behind roadkill helps to plan mitigation measures to reduce the impacts of roads on animal populations. However, although roadkill patterns have been extensively studied in temperate zones, the potential impacts of roads on wildlife in the Neotropics have received less attention and are particularly poorly understood in the Western Amazon. Here, we present the results of a study on roadkill in the Amazon region of Ecuador; a region that is affected by a rapidly increasing development of road infrastructure. Over the course of 50 days, in the wet season between September and November 2017, we searched for road‐killed vertebrates on 15.9 km of roads near the city of Tena, Napo province, for a total of 1,590 surveyed kilometers. We recorded 593 dead specimens, predominantly reptiles (237 specimens, 40%) and amphibians (190, 32%), with birds (102, 17%) and mammals (64, 11%) being less common. Recorded species were assigned to three functional groups, based on their movement behavior and habitat use (“slow,” “intermediate,” and “fast”). Using Ripley's K statistical analyses and 2D HotSpot Identification Analysis, we found multiple distinct spatial clusters or hotspots, where roadkill was particularly frequent. Factors that potentially determined these clusters, and the prevalence of roadkill along road segments in general, differed between functional groups, but often included land cover variables such as native forest and waterbodies, and road characteristics such as speed limit (i.e., positive effect on roadkill frequency). Our study, which provides a first summary of species that are commonly found as roadkill in this part of the Amazon region, contributes to a better understanding of the negative impacts of roads on wildlife and is an important first step toward conservation efforts to mitigate these impacts.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wildlife roadkill patterns in a fragmented landscape of the Western Amazon

Filius

Hoek

Jarrín‐V

et al. 2020

Ecology and Evolution

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“…Implementing expert-predicted infrastructure impacts into conservation prioritization re-ranked the region's conservation priorities (Figure 3). Experts identified that species within different threat-similarity groups would be differently affected by infrastructure, supporting findings that ecological traits affect vulnerability to infrastructure (González-Suárez et al, 2018;Rytwinski & Fahrig, 2012). For example, experts estimated that frogs would experience greater reductions in habitat quality close to roads than most other groups.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

Integrating spatially realistic infrastructure impacts into conservation planning to inform strategic environmental assessment

Tulloch

Gordon

Runge

et al. 2019

CONSERVATION LETTERS

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Infrastructures such as roads and pipelines have environmental impacts that diffuse far beyond the local development footprint, including fragmenting habitat or changing hydrology. Broad‐scale diffuse impacts are challenging to incorporate into conservation planning and strategic environmental assessment due to difficulties in determining how impacts spread across landscapes. We built curves representing expert‐elicited magnitudes and spatial extents of direct and diffuse impacts of infrastructure on biodiversity groups, to incorporate these impacts into a spatial conservation prioritization. We demonstrate how different prioritization outputs inform different steps of the impact assessment mitigation hierarchy. In southern Australia we find the diffuse‐impact footprint to be four times higher than direct (i.e., local) infrastructure impacts, with >75,000 km2 of spatial priority areas for mitigation and >37,000 km2 of spatial priority areas for offsets potentially missed if diffuse impacts are ignored. Understanding both direct and diffuse infrastructure impacts will avoid inefficient spatial allocation of environmental mitigation, restoration, and offsetting efforts.

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“…Due to the predictive nature of the regression tree imputation approach, the estimated values will differ slightly each time. To capture this imputation uncertainty and to converge on a reliable result, we repeated the process 15 times, resulting in 15 trait datasets (González-Suárez, Zanchetta Ferreira, & Grilo, 2018;van Buuren & Groothuis-Oudshoorn, 2011). We take the mean trait values across the 15 datasets for subsequent analyses.…”

Section: Multiple Imputationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biological traits of seabirds predict extinction risk and vulnerability to anthropogenic threats

Richards

Cooke

Bates

2020

Preprint

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Aim: Here we aim to: 1) test whether globally-threatened vs non-threatened seabirds are separated in trait space; 2) quantify the redundancy and uniqueness of species trait combinations per IUCN Red List Category; and 3) identify traits that render species vulnerable to anthropogenic threats. Location: Global. Time period: Contemporary. Major taxa studied: Seabirds. Methods: We compile and impute eight traits that relate to species vulnerabilities and ecosystem functioning across 341 seabird species. Using these traits, we build a mixed data PCA of species trait space. We further quantify trait redundancy with a unique trait combinations (UTCs) approach. Finally, we employ a similarity of percentages analysis (SIMPER) to identify which traits explain the greatest difference between threat groups. Results: We find seabirds segregate in trait space based on threat status, indicating anthropogenic impacts are selectively removing large, long-lived, pelagic surface feeders with narrow habitat breadths. We further find that globally threatened species have higher trait redundancy, while non-threatened species have relatively unique ecological strategies and limited redundancy. Finally, we find that species with narrow habitat breadths, fast reproductive speeds, and omnivorous diets are more likely to be threatened by habitat-modifying processes (e.g., pollution and natural system modifications); whereas pelagic specialists with slow reproductive speeds and omnivorous diets are vulnerable to threats that directly impact survival and fecundity (e.g., invasive species and biological resource use). Main conclusions: Our results suggest both globally threatened and non-threatened species contribute unique ecological strategies. Consequently, conserving both threat groups, but with contrasting approaches may avoid potential changes in ecosystem functioning and stability.

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Spatial and species‐level predictions of road mortality risk using trait data

Cited by 79 publications

References 48 publications

Wildlife roadkill patterns in a fragmented landscape of the Western Amazon

Wildlife roadkill patterns in a fragmented landscape of the Western Amazon

Integrating spatially realistic infrastructure impacts into conservation planning to inform strategic environmental assessment

Biological traits of seabirds predict extinction risk and vulnerability to anthropogenic threats

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