Traffic and weather influence on small wildlife carcass persistence time on roads

The rapidly expanding road network threatens the persistence of many terrestrial species through mortality associated with wildlife-vehicle collisions. Roadkill monitoring under-estimate actual collision numbers as the time during which roadkill carcasses remain visible on the road is often shorter than the frequency of road monitoring. By placing passerine and amphibian carcasses on stretches of roads the authors surveyed every 2 h, the authors fine-tuned existing persistence estimates for these species. The time for half of the carcasses to disappear was less than 30 min for birds and 1–18 h for amphibians depending on the volume of traffic, which is much shorter than previous estimates. The authors show the implications of the authors' results by performing roadkill surveys on common toads 3 h after the window of reproductive migration, showing roadkill is under-estimated by half, and by estimating from citizen-science data that passerine collisions could be as high as 10 individuals.km⁻².year⁻¹ in south-eastern France.

• Record URL:
  • https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2023.104012
• Record URL:
  • http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1361920923004091
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/13619209
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Abstract reprinted with permission of Elsevier.
• Authors:
  • Bénard, Annaëlle
  • 0000-0002-0734-9438
  • Bonenfant, Christophe
  • Lengagne, Thierry
• Publication Date: 2024-1

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: Appendices; Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 104012
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment
  • Volume: 126
  • Issue Number: 0
  • Publisher: Elsevier
  • ISSN: 1361-9209
  • Serial URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/13619209

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Animal vehicle crashes; Ecology; Road kill; Weather conditions; Wildlife
• Geographic Terms: France
• Subject Areas: Environment; Highways;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01902857
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Dec 20 2023 3:43PM