title: Habitat or matrix: which is more relevant to predict road-kill of vertebrates?
abstract: We believe that in tropics we need a community approach to evaluate road impacts on wildlife, and thus, suggest mitigation measures for groups of species instead a focal-species approach. Understanding which landscape characteristics indicate road-kill events may also provide models that can be applied in other regions. We intend to evaluate if habitat or matrix is more relevant to predict road-kill events for a group of species. Our hypothesis is: more permeable matrix is the most relevant factor to explain road-kill events. To test this hypothesis, we chose vertebrates as the studied assemblage and a highway crossing in an Atlantic Forest region in southeastern Brazil as the study site. Logistic regression models were designed using presence/absence of road-kill events as dependent variables and landscape characteristics as independent variables, which were selected by Akaike's Information Criterion. We considered a set of candidate models containing four types of simple regression models: Habitat effect model; Matrix types effect models; Highway effect model; and, Reference models (intercept and buffer distance). Almost three hundred road-kills and 70 species were recorded. River proximity and herbaceous vegetation cover, both matrix effect models, were associated to most road-killed vertebrate groups. Matrix was more relevant than habitat to predict road-kill of vertebrates. The association between river proximity and road-kill indicates that rivers may be a preferential route for most species. We discuss multi-species mitigation measures and implications to movement ecology and conservation strategies.
authors.affiliation: Universidade Veiga de Almeida, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bueno
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
authors.forename: C O M
authors.initials: CO
authors.lastname: Sousa
authors.affiliation: Centro de Ciências Naturais e Humanas, Universidade Federal do ABC, Santo André, SP, Brazil.
authors.forename: S R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Freitas
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001938:Brazil; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D017753:Ecosystem; D065928:Forests; D009026:Mortality; D018986:Motor Vehicles; D009068:Movement; D014714:Vertebrates