As such, bobcats in the Midwest are under increasing pressure from hunting and trapping 28, 29, highlighting the need for accurate information on population dynamics. In recent years, bobcat populations have begun to expand and recover in many of these regions 26, 27. For this, combining many types of wildlife data, such as road mortality counts, movement rates, habitat use, and genetics, along with a thorough understanding of animal space use and behavior in relation to roads, can provide better inference on population processes and validate data consistency 23.īobcats were extirpated from a number of US states along the eastern coast and throughout the Midwest, including Ohio in the 1850s, as a result of heavy deforestation and over-hunting in the 19 th century 24, 25. As such, inferring population-level effects of road mortality is critical to understanding population trajectories, especially in unharvested populations 22. High-traffic roads can act as partial barriers to gene flow and partition animal populations into sinks and sources, thus having a direct impact on population dynamics 6, 21. However, not all roads are utilized in the same way low traffic or forest roads can be actively used for movement and foraging, whereas others, such as highways, may be actively avoided 20. Many carnivores have adapted their behavior to use roads and areas surrounding roads, as they offer least-cost movement corridors 16, 17, facilitate interspecific interactions 18, and provide abundant food resources 19. ![]() Vehicle strikes are a leading source of mortality for many apex predators, especially in regions with high road density, because of their large home-range requirements, extensive movements, and lack of natural predators 14, 15. As human populations and infrastructure continue to expand, the commensurate increase in road density and traffic volumes bring into question the long-term viability and recovery prospects for many wildlife species 12, 13. These effects further lead to decreases in animal species abundance and richness, especially for larger-bodied mammals 11. The negative effects of roadways and traffic on wildlife are far-reaching it is well known that roads can create barriers to movement 3, cause habitat fragmentation 4, 5, impede gene flow 6, and contribute to direct mortality 7, 8, 9, 10. Roads are among the most ubiquitous human features to pervade ecosystems worldwide 1, 2. Our results identify potential areas for mitigation of vehicle-strikes and emphasize the importance of accounting for road mortality when making management decisions for Ohio’s recovering bobcat population. To fully understand the population level impacts of this mortality, we recommend further monitoring of age structure and sex of roadkill animals. Finally, by integrating traffic volume data, road crossing behavior, and accounting for the proportion of each route type present in the study area, we estimated that a minimum of 6% and up to 18% of the bobcat population in Ohio is lost to vehicle-strikes annually. ![]() Bobcats exhibited avoidance of certain route types (county, municipal, and US routes). To explore road avoidance behaviors, we used GPS telemetry data from 18 individuals to compare road crossings along trajectory paths with random road crossings simulated using Correlated Random Walks. We found that bobcats were killed at higher rates on interstates regardless of surrounding landscape composition, but that landscape variables were useful at predicting mortality on lower-traffic roads. First, we utilized a long-term vehicle-strike dataset (1978–2017) to determine landscape and local predictors of road mortality. In this study, we integrated multiple datasets to examine overall road mortality rates in Ohio. As bobcat ( Lynx rufus) populations recover in Ohio, an accurate evaluation of population metrics is critical to understanding future population trajectories. Roadways pose challenges for conserving wide-ranging animal species.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |