The importance of roads and road verges for raptors and crows in the Succulent and Nama-Karoo, South Africa

Habitat associations of a raptor community in a mosaic landscape of Central Spain under urban development

“…This species avoided areas highly altered by human uses, such as cities, suburban sites, or treeless pasturelands. This pattern observed in the piedmont of Guadarrama mountains markedly contrasts with other works showing that the Black Kite is positively influenced by moderate levels of human impacts, mainly due to its scavenging habits and hunting opportunism (Brandl et al, 1985;Sorley and Andersen, 1994;Herremans and Herremans-Tonnoeyr, 2000;Meunier et al, 2000;Dean and Milton, 2003;Sánchez-Zapata et al, 2003;Bustamante and Seoane, 2004). Nevertheless, the use of anthopogenic areas by the Black Kite are only occasional, and linked to profitable human wastes, but otherwise avoided when more natural habitats and food resources are available (Blanco, 1997;Sergio et al, 2003).…”

“…On the contrary, croplands, roads and other anthropogenic alterations seem not to be harmful to raptors when promoting landscape heterogeneity and/or providing new foraging or nesting opportunities (e.g. Knight and Kawashima, 1993;Zelenak and Rotella, 1997;Dykstra et al, 2000;Rottenborn, 2000;Anderson, 2001;Dean and Milton, 2003).…”

Easy technique for assessing pollination rates in the genus Erica reveals road impact on bird pollination in the Cape fynbos, South Africa

“…Research has found that responses of different species vary, but total bird captures declined significantly at road edges as most birds are reluctant to cross a road (Develey & Stouffer 2001;Laurance et al 2004). Some birds however prefer roads (Dean & Milton 2003;Lambertucci et al 2009) so it seems specific species (Kuitunen et al 1998) or guilds (Forman & Alexander 1998;Kuitunen et al 1998;Laurance et al 2004) of birds are more affected. Among the various reasons proposed, including predators, visual disturbance and air pollutants, traffic noise seems to be the major cause for changes in avian community assembly (see review by Forman & Alexander 1998;Forman & Deblinger 2000;Peris & Pescador 2004).…”

“…There are few studies of road effects in South Africa with no studies in the fynbos vegetation at the Cape, despite the conservation importance of road verges in this region (Dean & Milton 2003;Weiermans & van Aarde 2003). Therefore in this study we test whether disturbed anther rings are a good proxy for pollination rate (i) by testing whether a sunbird visit disturbs the anther ring and (ii) by the presence or absence of pollen on stigmas of flowers with disturbed and intact anther rings.…”

Traffic Influence on Roadside Bird Abundance and Behaviour

“…Birds like raptors, gulls, and corvids are often attracted to roads where they scavenge on food leftovers or roadkills (Forman 2000, Mumme et al 2000, Dean & Milton 2003, Husby & Husby 2014. Other species, like White Wagtails Motacilla alba (Erritzøe et al 2003, Husby & Husby 2014, forage on insects on or next to roads, and e.g.…”