Abstract

Roads have a pervasive multi-faceted influence on ecosystems, including pronounced impacts on wildlife movements. In recognition of the scale-transcending impacts of transportation infrastructure, ecologists have been encouraged to extend the study of barrier impacts from individual roads and animals to networks and populations. In this study, we adopt an analytical representation of road networks as mosaics of landscape tiles, separated by roads. We then adapt spatial capture-recapture analysis to estimate the propensity of wildlife to stay within the boundaries of the road network tiles (RNTs) that hold their activity centres. We fit the model to national non-invasive genetic monitoring data for brown bears Ursus arctos in Sweden and show that bears had up to 73% lower odds of using areas outside the network tile of their home range centre, even after accounting for the effect of natural barriers (major rivers) and the decrease in utilization with increasing distance from a bear's activity centre. Our study highlights the pronounced landscape-level barrier effect on wildlife mobility and, in doing so, introduces a novel and flexible approach for quantifying contemporary fragmentation from the scale of RNTs and individual animals to transportation networks and populations.

Published in

Ecography
2017, Volume: 40, number: 12, pages: 1369-1380
Publisher: WILEY

SLU Authors

• Kindberg, Jonas

  • Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA)

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG15 Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
SDG9 Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation


UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.02801

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/92678