Abstract
Wildlife mortality due to collisions with vehicles (roadkill) is one of the predominant negative effects exerted by roads on many wildlife species. Reducing roadkill is therefore a major component of wildlife conservation. Roadkill is affected by various factors, including road attributes and traffic volume. It is theorized that the effect of traffic volume on roadkill probability should be unimodal. However, empirical evidence for this theory is lacking. Using a large-scale roadkill database of 18 wildlife species in Israel, encompassing 2846 km of roads over 10 years, we explored the effects of traffic volume and road attributes (e.g., road lighting, verge vegetation) on roadkill probability with a multivariate generalized linear mixed model. A unimodal effect of traffic volume was identified for the striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena), whereas 5 species demonstrated a novel quadratic U-shaped effect (e.g., golden jackal [Canis aureus]). Four species showed a negative linear effect (e.g., wild boar [Sus scrofa]). We also identified varying effects of road attributes on roadkill. For instance, road lighting and roadside trees decreased roadkill for several species, whereas bus stops and concrete guardrails led to increased roadkill. The theorized unimodal effect of traffic volume may only apply to large, agile species, and the U-shaped effect could be related to intraspecies variability in traffic avoidance behavior. In general, we found that both high-traffic and low-traffic roads can pose a high mortality risk for wildlife. It is therefore important to monitor roadkill on low-traffic roads and adapt road attributes to mitigate roadkill. Road design for effective roadkill mitigation includes reducing the use of concrete guardrails and median barriers where possible and avoiding dense bushes in verge landscaping. These measures are complemented by employing wildlife detection systems, driver warnings, and seasonal speed reduction measures on low-traffic roads identified as roadkill hotspots.
Original language | English |
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Article number | e14159 |
Journal | Conservation Biology |
Volume | 38 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Apr 2024 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2024 The Authors. Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology.
Keywords
- animales atropellados
- colisiones fauna-vehículo
- ecología de carreteras
- fragmentación de hábitat
- habitat fragmentation
- infraestructura de transporte
- mitigación
- mitigation
- mortalidad de fauna
- road ecology
- roadkill
- traffic volume
- transportation infrastructure
- volumen de tráfico
- wildlife mortality
- wildlife–vehicle collisions
- 交通基础设施
- 交通量
- 减缓措施
- 栖息地破碎化
- 路杀
- 道路生态
- 野生动物与车辆碰撞
- 野生动物死亡率
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
- Ecology
- Nature and Landscape Conservation