Roadkill hotspots in a protected area of Cerrado in Brazil: planning actions to conservation

Abstract

Objective. Here we aimed to identify the main points of animal death by roadkill in the view of helping mitigation plans and reducing the impact over the local fauna of a protected area. Materials and methods. We surveyed the roads around a protected area of Cerrado (São Paulo, Brazil) from May 2012 to August 2013. We recorded the local of roadkills, biometric and morphologic data of the animals, and collected samples of tissue for molecular species confirmation. Results. Thirty-one roadkilled animals were registered, including threatened species: Leopardus pardalis; Cuniculus paca and Chrysocyon brachyurus. Most roadkills were represented by mammals (54.8%) and reptiles (38.7%), and the mortality rate was 1.46 animals/km/year. Three roadkill hotspots were detected, suggesting that they were important points of animal crossing, probably because of the existence of natural remnant vegetation and intersection of roads by riparian vegetation. Conclusions. This work provided strong evidence of the most critical points where mitigation strategies should be immediately implemented and highlighted the importance of detecting roadkill hotspots and the species or taxonomic groups more affected, helping to elaborate effective actions that can improve fauna conservation.

Current trends in the application of non-invasive genetic sampling to study Neotropical birds: Uses, goals, and conservation potential

“…40 Bird carcasses were used as source of DNA for molecular identification of the species involved in collisions with terrestrial vehicles. 49,50 In cases such as these, when the physical deterioration of the remains preclude a reliable morphological identification of the species killed, the molecular identification is usually the only alternative. DNA isolated from carcasses was also used in a study aimed at estimating divergence time of two raptor species ( Tyto alba and Asio flammeus ).…”

Roadkill records of reptiles and birds in Cerrado and Pantanal landscapes

“…First geographic records (FGR) and new roadkill records (NRR) for reptile and bird species were verified from the literature. We compared our dataset to data collected by De Souza et al (2014) from the same highway (BR-262) and data of road-killed reptiles and birds from other Brazilian roads (Novelli et al 1988, Prado et al 2006, Silva et al 2007, Coelho et al 2008, Hengemühle and Cademartori 2008, Cunha et al 2010, Hartmann et al 2011, Ramos et al 2011, Santana 2012, Santos et al 2012, 2014Carvalho et al 2014, Klippel et al 2015, Machado et al 2015, Almeida et al 2016, Braz and França 2016, Deffaci et al 2016, Saranholi et al 2016, Steil et al 2016, Corrêa et al 2017, Miranda et al 2017, Rodríguez-Castro et al 2017, Viturino and Graciolli 2017, Gonçalves et al 2018, Ramos-Abrantes et al 2018.…”

“…Large scale spatiotemporal monitoring of regional fauna has provided information about species distribution within different environments, as well as for the Cerrado and Pantanal domains (e.g. Alho et al 2011, Braz and França 2016, Saranholi et al 2016. The long-term project called Programa Estrada Viva: BR-262 monitored the road-killed fauna along the highway between Campo Grande and Corumbá, providing a broad database for wildlife management (Fischer 1997, GEIPOT 1999.…”

Mortalidad de vertebrados silvestres en la carretera Troncal del Caribe, Magdalena, Colombia

“…Los países con más estudios producidos alrededor de la ecología de carreteras en el Neotrópico son Brasil, México y Costa Rica, y en su mayoría las investigaciones apuntan a la identificación de la fauna atropellada en carreteras nacionales y los impactos que estas generan sobre algunas especies y poblaciones biológicas particulares. Sin embargo, estudios más recientes se han enfocado en la determinación de hotspots como mecanismo para la identificación de puntos de cruce de fauna silvestre y su utilización en la elección acertada de medidas de mitigación (Tabeni et al, 2004;Teixeira et al, 2013;Artavia, 2015;Saranholi et al, 2016) Aunque en Colombia la inversión en infraestructura vial ha ido en aumento, los estudios que dimensionan la problemática de los efectos de las carreteras sobre sistemas naturales protegidos o bosques circundantes son pocos. Algunos no han sido publicados y otros son solo reportes periodísticos (Monroy et al, 2015).…”