Planillo Aimara, Malo Juan E
Terrestrial Ecology Group (TEG) Department of Ecology Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Madrid Spain.
Ecol Evol. 2017 Dec 12;8(2):942-952. doi: 10.1002/ece3.3709. eCollection 2018 Jan.
Human disturbance is widespread across landscapes in the form of roads that alter wildlife populations. Knowing which road features are responsible for the species response and their relevance in comparison with environmental variables will provide useful information for effective conservation measures. We sampled relative abundance of European rabbits, a very widespread species, in motorway verges at regional scale, in an area with large variability in environmental and infrastructure conditions. Environmental variables included vegetation structure, plant productivity, distance to water sources, and altitude. Infrastructure characteristics were the type of vegetation in verges, verge width, traffic volume, and the presence of embankments. We performed a variance partitioning analysis to determine the relative importance of two sets of variables on rabbit abundance. Additionally, we identified the most important variables and their effects model averaging after model selection by AICc on hypothesis-based models. As a group, infrastructure features explained four times more variability in rabbit abundance than environmental variables, being the effects of the former critical in motorway stretches located in altered landscapes with no available habitat for rabbits, such as agricultural fields. Model selection and Akaike weights showed that verge width and traffic volume are the most important variables explaining rabbit abundance index, with positive and negative effects, respectively. In the light of these results, the response of species to the infrastructure can be modulated through the modification of motorway features, being some of them manageable in the design phase. The identification of such features leads to suggestions for improvement through low-cost corrective measures and conservation plans. As a general indication, keeping motorway verges less than 10 m wide will prevent high densities of rabbits and avoid the unwanted effects that rabbit populations can generate in some areas.
人类干扰以道路的形式广泛存在于各种景观中，改变着野生动物种群。了解哪些道路特征导致了物种的反应以及它们与环境变量相比的相关性，将为有效的保护措施提供有用信息。我们在区域尺度的高速公路边缘对欧洲野兔（一种分布非常广泛的物种）的相对丰度进行了采样，该区域的环境和基础设施条件差异很大。环境变量包括植被结构、植物生产力、到水源的距离和海拔。基础设施特征包括边缘植被类型、边缘宽度、交通流量和路堤的存在情况。我们进行了方差分解分析，以确定两组变量对野兔丰度的相对重要性。此外，我们在基于假设的模型通过AICc进行模型选择后，确定了最重要的变量及其效应的模型平均。总体而言，基础设施特征对野兔丰度变化的解释力是环境变量的四倍，在位于景观改变且野兔无可用栖息地（如农田）的高速公路路段，前者的影响至关重要。模型选择和Akaike权重表明，边缘宽度和交通流量是解释野兔丰度指数的最重要变量，分别具有正向和负向影响。鉴于这些结果，通过改变高速公路特征可以调节物种对基础设施的反应，其中一些特征在设计阶段是可控的。识别这些特征有助于通过低成本的纠正措施和保护计划提出改进建议。一般来说，保持高速公路边缘宽度小于10米将防止野兔高密度出现，并避免野兔种群在某些地区可能产生的不良影响。
