Birds and Roads: Reduced Transit for Smaller Species over Roads within an Urban Environment

Johnson, C. E.; Evans, Daryl; Jones, Darryl

doi:10.3389/fevo.2017.00036

Cited by 28 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 45 publications

(123 reference statements)

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“…Many bird species are killed on the roads [32,[40][41][42][43][44][45] and, again, mortality may be underestimated because many are small in size. Unlike snakes in Australia [36], it seems that nocturnal birds are more at risk [46], possibly because birds forage from the roads, which allow clear views of invertebrates in the dusk sky above (e.g.…”

Section: Direct Alteration Of Species Abundance and Distributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In semi-arid ecosystems in South Africa, South America and Australia, road verges are often the only place in the landscape where there is some green growth [12,21,32,61,62] or remaining original habitat [8]. These patches can be crucial for a number of small mammal (<5 kg) [19,93,94], bird [45,94], reptile ( [95] and invertebrate communities [80,81]. In some cases, the higher productivity of road verges may attract species; in other cases, road verges may be the last vestiges of available habitat [8,94,96].…”

Section: Altered Primary Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Review of the Impacts of Roads on Wildlife in Semi-Arid Regions

et al. 2019

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Roads now penetrate even the most remote parts of much of the world, but the majority of research on the effects of roads on biota has been in less remote temperate environments. The impacts of roads in semi-arid and arid areas may differ from these results in a number of ways. Here, we review the research on the impacts of roads on biodiversity patterns and ecological and evolutionary processes in semi-arid regions. The most obvious effect of roads is mortality or injury through collision. A diversity of scavengers are killed whilst feeding on roadkill, a source of easily accessed food. Noise pollution from roads and traffic interferes with vocal communication by animals, and birds and frogs living along noisy roads compensate for traffic noise by increasing the amplitude or pitch of their calls. Artificial light along roads impacts certain species’ ability to navigate, as well as attracting invertebrates. Animals are in turn attracted to invertebrates at streetlights, and vulnerable to becoming roadkill themselves. Genetics research across taxa confirms a loss of genetic diversity in small populations isolated by roads, but the long-term impact on the fitness of affected populations through a reduction in genetic diversity is not yet clear. Roads may rapidly cause genetic effects, raising conservation concerns about rare and threatened species. We assess mitigation measures and collate methods to identify the impact of roads on wildlife populations and their associated ecosystems, with a particular focus on recent advances.

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Section: Direct Alteration Of Species Abundance and Distributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Altered Primary Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Review of the Impacts of Roads on Wildlife in Semi-Arid Regions

et al. 2019

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“…In addition to these limitations imposed by the urban structure, species-specific traits also determine the ability of species to reach suitable habitat in urban areas. These include home range [47,66], dispersal ability [47,[66][67][68][69][70] and sensitivity towards barriers [47,54,[71][72][73].…”

Section: Local Species Potential: Site Limitations and Dispersal Barrmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Conceptual Framework for Choosing Target Species for Wildlife-Inclusive Urban Design

et al. 2019

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Recent research has highlighted the significance of cities for biodiversity, making them important places for conservation in their own right. Current conservation approaches in cities are mostly defensive. Thus, they focus on remnant pockets of natural areas or try to protect particular species that occur in the built environment. These approaches are vulnerable to further urban development and do not create habitats. An alternative strategy is to make wildlife an integral part of urban development and thereby create a new habitat in the built-up area. Here we address the challenge of choosing target species for such wildlife-inclusive urban design. The starting point of our conceptual framework is the regional species pool, which can be obtained from geo-referenced species data. The existing habitat types on and around the development site and dispersal barriers limit the species numbers to the local species potential. In the next step, the site’s potential for each species is analyzed—how can it be upgraded to host species given the planned development and the life-cycle of the species? For the final choice of target species, traits related to the human–animal interaction are considered. We suggest that stakeholders will be involved in the final species selection. Our approach differs from existing practice, such as expert choice of priority species, by (1) representing an open process where many species are potential targets of conservation, (2) the involvement of stakeholders in a participatory way. Our approach can also be used at larger spatial scales such as quarters or entire cities.

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“…At present there are over 64 million kilometres of roads on the earth, and Great Britain comprises almost 400,000km of asphalt road, which could circulate ten times around the globe (Cooke, Balmford, Johnston, Newton, & Donald, 2020). While roads are important to human society as a means of transport of people and goods, they can have negative impacts on wildlife (Arnold et al, 2019;Johnson, Evans, & Jones, 2017;Meijer, Huijbregts, Schotten, & Schipper, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Wildlife can suffer adverse effects from roads, for example by direct impacts like collision with transport, or by indirect impacts like the fragmentation of habitats (Schwartz, Williams, Chadwick, Thomas, & Perkins, 2018). In addition, roads contribute to negative effects by noise, pollution, and light (Johnson, Evans, & Jones, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing bird collisions in the United Kingdom: Modelling frequency of bird-strike from road and rail mortality using a Bayesian hierarchical approach

Freire

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Lewis

2020

Preprint

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Roads are an important way to transport people and goods, but they sometimes have negative impacts on wildlife. One of the leading causes of mortality for several species is identified as road strikes, and the most significant remains bird-vehicle collisions. This study aimed to investigate what species of birds are most affected, and what other factors impact in their susceptibility in road collisions, such as age, sex, season, and type of transports. A total of N=5413 records, and 140 bird species were documented by BTO ringers. For analysis four Bayesian Hierarchical Models were used, with random effects results showing that Barn owls were most affected by collisions. Road mortality presents the highest cause of mortality among species when contrasted with rail mortality. Age and sexual bias was detected across all species, however juveniles and males did appear to be prominent in relation to other age classes. Winter and early spring were the months with most reported casualties and 2016 had lower abundance of mortality across the 10-year period. 75% of birds were found within a week, which may indicate some bias interference from scavenging animals, as true figures could be up to 16 times more. This study discusses some mitigation measures found in current research, that could dramatically reduce numbers of birds affected each year by road mortality.

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Birds and Roads: Reduced Transit for Smaller Species over Roads within an Urban Environment

Cited by 28 publications

References 45 publications

A Review of the Impacts of Roads on Wildlife in Semi-Arid Regions

A Review of the Impacts of Roads on Wildlife in Semi-Arid Regions

A Conceptual Framework for Choosing Target Species for Wildlife-Inclusive Urban Design

Assessing bird collisions in the United Kingdom: Modelling frequency of bird-strike from road and rail mortality using a Bayesian hierarchical approach

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