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Road effects on demographic traits of small mammal populations

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Abstract

Recent studies have highlighted the positive effects of road verges on the abundance of small mammals. However, most of these studies occurred in intensively grazed or cultivated areas, where verges were the last remnants of suitable habitats, which could mask the true effects of roads on population traits. We analysed the effects of roads on small mammal populations living in a well-preserved Mediterranean forest. We used the wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) as a model of forest-dwelling small mammals that probably are among the species most affected by road clearings. Our study compared populations in similar habitat areas with and without road influence. We assessed abundance, survival and temporary emigration using extended Pollock’s robust design capture-recapture models. Moreover, we analysed population turnover, sex ratio, age structure and body condition. We found that wood mouse abundance and body condition were lower at the road bisected area, whereas the remaining population traits were similar. This suggests that the reduced habitat availability and quality due to the physical presence of the road and verge vegetation clearing are the main drivers of demographic differences in wood mouse populations between areas. Nevertheless, our results also suggest that in high-quality habitats surrounding national roads, wood mouse populations present similar dynamics to others living in undisturbed areas, despite the decrease in abundance and body condition. Overall, the often-reported increased small mammal abundance in road surroundings should not be generalized independently of habitat quality or to other population traits.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT; POPH/FSE) through a PhD grant attributed to AG (SFRH/BD/66382/2009). Unidade de Biologia da Conservação (UBC) and Instituto de Ciências Agrárias e Ambientais Mediterrânicas (ICAAM) provided additional funding. We thank the landowners for allowing us to use their land. We are grateful to André Lourenço, André Silva, Clara Ferreira, Denis Medinas, Edgar Gomes, Helena Marques, Marta Duarte, Pedro Costa, Rafael Carvalho, Sara Valente and Tiago Marques for the kind assistance in different stages of data collection. We thank the valuable comments from Ricardo Pita and Sara Santos. We thank the suggestions from the handling editor and two anonymous reviewers that greatly improved our paper. We also thank the support from the analysis forum at http://www.phidot.org.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UBC - Unidade de Biologia da Conservação, Departamento de Biologia, Universidade de Évora, Pólo da Mitra, 7002-554, Évora, Portugal

    Ana Galantinho, Sofia Eufrázio, Carmo Silva, Filipe Carvalho & António Mira

  2. CIBIO-UE - Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, Pólo de Évora, Grupo de Investigação em Ecologia Aplicada, Universidade de Évora, Pólo da Mitra, 7002-554, Évora, Portugal

    Ana Galantinho, Sofia Eufrázio, Carmo Silva, Filipe Carvalho & António Mira

  3. ICAAM - Instituto de Ciências Agrárias e Ambientais Mediterrânicas, Grupo de Investigação em Paisagem, Biodiversidade e Sistemas Sócio-Ecológicos, Universidade de Évora, Núcleo da Mitra, Ap. 94, 7002-554, Évora, Portugal

    Ana Galantinho

  4. Department of Zoology and Entomology, School of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Fort Hare, Private Bag X1314, Alice, 5700, South Africa

    Filipe Carvalho

  5. Centro de Investigação em Matemática e Aplicações, Instituto de Investigação e Formação Avançada, Departamento de Matemática, Escola de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade de Évora, Rua Romão Ramalho 59, 7000-671, Évora, Portugal

    Russell Alpizar-Jara

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  1. Ana Galantinho
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Correspondence to Ana Galantinho.

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This research involves animals.

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All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed. All the procedures followed the guidelines approved by the Portuguese Institute for Nature and Forest Conservation (ICNF - Instituto de Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas) and the American Society of Mammalogists for the use of wild mammals in research (Sikes et al. 2011).

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Galantinho, A., Eufrázio, S., Silva, C. et al. Road effects on demographic traits of small mammal populations. Eur J Wildl Res 63, 22 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-017-1076-7

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