Roads, Traffic and Verges

Ascensão, Fernando; LaPoint, Scott D.; Ree, Rodney van der

doi:10.1002/9781118568170.ch39

Cited by 28 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…In conclusion, here we used the wood mouse as a model in a study designed to disentangle the causes of the road barrier effect and investigate the role of road avoidance through the analysis of genetic patterns, and the results contribute to our understanding of how small mammal populations may be affected by highways [ 153 ]. Moreover, it adds to the growing literature demonstrating that roads can have a rapid effect on the genetic connectivity and substructuring of wildlife populations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disentangle the Causes of the Road Barrier Effect in Small Mammals through Genetic Patterns

et al. 2016

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Road barrier effect is among the foremost negative impacts of roads on wildlife. Knowledge of the factors responsible for the road barrier effect is crucial to understand and predict species’ responses to roads, and to improve mitigation measures in the context of management and conservation. We built a set of hypothesis aiming to infer the most probable cause of road barrier effect (traffic effect or road surface avoidance), while controlling for the potentially confounding effects road width, traffic volume and road age. The wood mouse Apodemus sylvaticus was used as a model species of small and forest-dwelling mammals, which are more likely to be affected by gaps in cover such as those resulting from road construction. We confront genetic patterns from opposite and same roadsides from samples of three highways and used computer simulations to infer migration rates between opposite roadsides. Genetic patterns from 302 samples (ca. 100 per highway) suggest that the highway barrier effect for wood mouse is due to road surface avoidance. However, from the simulations we estimated a migration rate of about 5% between opposite roadsides, indicating that some limited gene flow across highways does occur. To reduce highway impact on population genetic diversity and structure, possible mitigation measures could include retrofitting of culverts and underpasses to increase their attractiveness and facilitate their use by wood mice and other species, and setting aside roadside strips without vegetation removal to facilitate establishment and dispersal of small mammals.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disentangle the Causes of the Road Barrier Effect in Small Mammals through Genetic Patterns

et al. 2016

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“…Although a road itself is a linear structure, its effect zone may extend perpendicularly up to hundreds to thousands of meters [2,3]. Even the positive effects on wildlife provided by roads may become ecological traps for some species or their predators [4,5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Analytical Framework of the Factors Affecting Wildlife–Vehicle Collisions and Barriers to Movement

Wang

Yang

et al. 2023

Sustainability

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Road mortalities caused by wildlife–vehicle collisions (WVCs) are the most obvious negative effect of roads on wildlife. Identifying the influencing factors and summarizing the spatial-temporal patterns of WVCs have been important research trends in recent decades. However, most studies have only considered a portion of the factors, and there remains a lack of a relatively complete framework, including the numerous factors of WVCs, as well as the underlying transmission mechanisms between factors. In this study, an analytical framework incorporating a wide range of previously discussed factors is constructed. The framework not only displays the possible direction of the influence of each factor on WVCs, but also summarizes some important potential explanations under some circumstances and reveals the main interactions between certain types of factors. From one perspective, the factors affecting WVCs can be divided into four categories: species characteristics, road and traffic characteristics, landscape and environmental characteristics, and driver-related factors and specific human activities. From another perspective, the factors affecting WVCs can be mainly categorized as those related to entering roads and those related to leaving roads safely. The study begins with a discussion of three important sub-frameworks: factors promoting road crossing, factors related to barriers to movement, and factors related to safe crossing. Finally, a suggestion is provided to promote the research on WVCs globally.

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Infrastructure features outperform environmental variables explaining rabbit abundance around motorways

Planillo

Malo

2017

Ecology and Evolution

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Human disturbance is widespread across landscapes in the form of roads that alter wildlife populations. Knowing which road features are responsible for the species response and their relevance in comparison with environmental variables will provide useful information for effective conservation measures. We sampled relative abundance of European rabbits, a very widespread species, in motorway verges at regional scale, in an area with large variability in environmental and infrastructure conditions. Environmental variables included vegetation structure, plant productivity, distance to water sources, and altitude. Infrastructure characteristics were the type of vegetation in verges, verge width, traffic volume, and the presence of embankments. We performed a variance partitioning analysis to determine the relative importance of two sets of variables on rabbit abundance. Additionally, we identified the most important variables and their effects model averaging after model selection by AICc on hypothesis‐based models. As a group, infrastructure features explained four times more variability in rabbit abundance than environmental variables, being the effects of the former critical in motorway stretches located in altered landscapes with no available habitat for rabbits, such as agricultural fields. Model selection and Akaike weights showed that verge width and traffic volume are the most important variables explaining rabbit abundance index, with positive and negative effects, respectively. In the light of these results, the response of species to the infrastructure can be modulated through the modification of motorway features, being some of them manageable in the design phase. The identification of such features leads to suggestions for improvement through low‐cost corrective measures and conservation plans. As a general indication, keeping motorway verges less than 10 m wide will prevent high densities of rabbits and avoid the unwanted effects that rabbit populations can generate in some areas.

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Roads, Traffic and Verges

Cited by 28 publications

References 40 publications

Disentangle the Causes of the Road Barrier Effect in Small Mammals through Genetic Patterns

Disentangle the Causes of the Road Barrier Effect in Small Mammals through Genetic Patterns

An Analytical Framework of the Factors Affecting Wildlife–Vehicle Collisions and Barriers to Movement

Infrastructure features outperform environmental variables explaining rabbit abundance around motorways

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