Relationship between wildlife road-kill and landscape features in Brazil: the case of three species of neotropical mammals

• Grant number: 16/12785-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: November 01, 2016
• End date: December 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Ecology - Applied Ecology
• Principal Investigator: Simone Rodrigues de Freitas
• Grantee: Douglas William Cirino
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Naturais e Humanas (CCNH). Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC). Ministério da Educação (Brasil). Santo André , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Road Ecology is an emerging branch of ecology that evaluates the impact of roads on biodiversity. One of the most studied impact is the death of wild animals due to collisions with road vehicles. From the Landscape Ecology perspective, the roads can be an aggressive type of matrix for many species, leading to increased mortality and isolation of animal populations. One group of more road-killed wild animals are mammals, of which three species are often recorded: Cerdocyon thous (dog-eating fox); Giant anteater (anteater) and six-banded armadillo (Armadillo-peba). Such species have different living habits and representative within their taxonomic groups, and it is expected that due to the large number of available data to enable the generation of robust models that relate the road-kill and landscape features. Through a survey of road-kill records data of these three species is intended to categorize biomes, states and municipalities with the highest incidence of road-kill and relate them with the following landscape features, obtained from digital maps of the Brazilian biomes, for each municipality recorded: (1) road density; (2) the area of native vegetation; (3) agricultural area; (4) urban area; (5) planted forest area (eg Pinus sp.); (6) proportion of water bodies; (7) density of streams; and (8) reserves area. It is expected that the native vegetation and road density landscape features relevant to explain the frequency of road-kill of the three species. Through linear regression models selected by Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) will be evaluated which landscape features (independent variables) better explain the occurrence of road-kill among the three species.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

LUPINETTI-CUNHA, ARTUR; CIRINO, DOUGLAS WILLIAM; VALE, MARIANA M.; FREITAS, SIMONE R.. Roadless areas in Brazil: land cover, land use, and conservation status. Regional Environmental Change, v. 22, n. 3, p. 12-pg., 2022-09-01. (16/12785-0, 17/17659-6)

CIRINO, DOUGLAS WILLIAM; LUPINETTI-CUNHA, ARTUR; FREITAS, CARLOS HENRIQUE; DE FREITAS, SIMONE RODRIGUES. Do the roadkills of different mammal species respond the same way to habitat and matrix?. NATURE CONSERVATION-BULGARIA, v. N/A, n. 47, p. 21-pg., 2022-03-25. (16/12785-0)