Patterns and Composition of Road-Killed Wildlife in Northwest Argentina

CUYCKENS, GRIET AN ERICA; MOCHI, LUCÍA SOL; VALLEJOS, MARÍA; PEROVIC, PABLO GASTÓN; BIGANZOLI, FERNANDO

ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

SPRINGER

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2016 vol. 58 p. 810 - 820

0364-152X

Roads have important effects on wildlife, such asnatural habitat fragmentation and degradation and directkilling of fauna, which leads to reductions in wildlifepopulation size. We focused on a principal road in NorthwestArgentina to test for the effect of seasonality andlandscape features on the composition of road-killed wildlife.We conducted regularly scheduled road trips during thedry and wet seasons. We recorded the presence or absenceof a vegetation curtain or hedge along the road. We measuredland use by remote sensing in a 500 m buffer alongthe road. We compared the abundance of animals killedbetween seasons (dry and wet) for different taxonomicgroups (mammals, birds and reptiles) and for different origins(domestic and native). We built linear mixed models totest the effect of landscape features on the abundance ofkilled animals. Two hundred and ninety-three individualswere killed, belonging to 35 species; 75.8 % were nativeand 24.2 % domestic species. The majority of animals killedwere mid-sized mammals. More animals were killed duringthe dry season. The most important factors to explain thewildlife road-killing were the season and the proportion ofagricultural landscape. The composition of the killed animalschanged with the season. The proportion of agriculturallandscape incremented the number of killed birdsand mammals during both seasons, without affecting reptiles.The ratio of wild to domestic animals killed wasdependent on the season. This study sets a precedent as thefirst in road ecology in Northwest Argentina and should betaken into account for road planning and regulation.