Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Identification methods and deterministic factors of owl roadkill hotspot locations in Mediterranean landscapes

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Ecological Research

Abstract

Road fatalities are among the major causes of mortality for Strigiformes species and may affect the population’s survival. The use of mitigation strategies must be considered to overcome this problem. However, because mitigation along the total length of all roads is not financially feasible, the locations where Strigiformes roadkills are more frequent (i.e., road fatality hotspots) must be identified. In addition to hotspot identification, factors that influence the occurrence of such fatalities should be recognized to allow mitigation measures to be delineated. We used road fatality data collected from 311 km of southern Portugal roads over a 2-year period to compare the performance of five hotspot identification methods: binary logistic regression (BLR), ecological niche factor analysis (ENFA), Kernel density estimation, nearest neighbor hierarchical clustering (NNHC), and Malo’s method. BLR and ENFA modelling were also used for recognizing roadkill deterministic factors. Our results suggest that Malo’s method should be preferred for hotspot identification. The main factors driving owl roadkillings are those associated with good habitat conditions for species occurrence and specific conditions that promote hunting behavior near roads. Based on these factors, several mitigation measures are recommended.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Andrews A (1990) Fragmentation of habitats by roads and utility corridors: a review. Aust Zool 26:130–141

    Google Scholar 

  • Árias JM (1994) Nota sobre alimentacion de Mochuelo (Athene noctua L., Aves: Strigiformes). Acta Vertebr 21:183–185

    Google Scholar 

  • Augustin NH, Mugglestone MA, Buckland ST (1998) The role of simulation in spatially correlated data. Environmetrics 9:175–196

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Baudvin H, Genot JC, Muller Y (1991) Les rapaces nocturnes. Sang de la Terre, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourquin JD (1983) Mortalité des rapaces le long de l’autoroute Géneve-Lausane. Nos Oiseaux 37:149–169

    Google Scholar 

  • Cabral MJ, Queiroz AI, Palmeirim J, Almeida J, Rogado L, Santos-Reis M, Oliveira ME, de Almeida PR, Dellinger T (2005) Livro vermelho dos vertebrados de Portugal. Assírio & Alvim, Lisboa

    Google Scholar 

  • Clevenger AP, Churszcz B, Gunson KE (2003) Spatial patterns and factors influencing small vertebrate fauna road-kill aggregations. Biol Conserv 109:15–26

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cramp S (1992) Handbook of the birds of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa—the birds of the western Paleartic. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • de Bruijn O (1994) Population ecology and conservation of the barn owl Tyto alba in farmland habitats in Liermers and Achterhoek (The Netherlands). Ardea 82:1–109

    Google Scholar 

  • Del Hoyo J, Elliot A, Sargatal J (1999) Barn-owls to hummingbirds. Lynx, Barcelona

  • Elias GI, Reino LM, Silva T, Tomé R, Geraldes P (1998) Atlas das aves invernantes do Baixo Alentejo. Sociedade Portuguesa para o Estudo das Aves, Lisboa

    Google Scholar 

  • ESRI (2004) ArcGIS 9. Environmental Systems Research Institute, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Everett B (1974) Cluster analysis. Heinemann Educational, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Exo KM (1992) Population ecology of little owls Athene noctua in Central Europe: a review. In: Galabraith CA, Taylor I, Percival S (eds) The ecology and conservation of European owls. Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Peterborough, pp 64–75

  • Fahrig L, Pedlar JH, Pope SE, Taylor PD, Wegner JF (1995) Effect of road traffic on amphibian density. Biol Conserv 73:177–182

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fajardo I (2001) Monitoring non-natural mortality in the barn owl (Tyto alba), as an indicator of land use and social awareness in Spain. Biol Conserv 97:143–149

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fajardo I, Pividal V (1994) Alarmante regresión de la lechuza común en la comunidad de Madrid. Quercus 97:34

    Google Scholar 

  • Fajardo I, Vázquez, Martín F, Calvo J, Ibañez F, Jiménez M (1992) Informe de los atropellos en las rapaces nocturnas. In: López J (ed) I Jornadas para el estudio y la prevención de la mortalidad de vertebrados en carreteras. CODA, Madrid

  • Fajardo I, Pividal V, Trigo M, Jiménez M (1998) Habitat selection, activity peaks and strategies to avoid road mortality by the little owl Athene noctua. Alauda 66:49–60

    Google Scholar 

  • Fajardo I, Babiloni G, Miranda Y (2000) Rehabilitated and wild barn owls (Tyto alba): dispersal, life expectancy and mortality in Spain. Biol Conserv 94:287–295

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Field A (2000) Discovering statistics using SPSS for Windows. Sage, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Finder RA, Roseberry JL, Woolf A (1999) Site and landscape conditions at white-tailed deer-vehicle collision locations in Illinois. Landsc Urban Plan 44:77–85

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Forman RT, Alexander LE (1998) Roads and their major ecological effects. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 29:207–231

    Google Scholar 

  • Forman RTT, Sperling D, Bissonette J, Clevenger AP, Cutshall CD, Dale VH, Fahrig L, France R, Goldman C, Heanue K, Jones JA, Swanson FJ, Turrentine T, Winter TC (2003) Road ecology: science and solutions. Island Press, Washington

    Google Scholar 

  • Frías O (1999) Estacionalidad de los atropellos de aves en el centro de España: numero y edad de los individuos y riqueza y diversidad de especies. Ardeola 46:23–30

    Google Scholar 

  • Gattrell AC, Bailey TC, Diggle PJ, Rowlingsont BS (1996) Spatial point pattern analysis and its application in geographical epidemiology. Trans Inst Br Geogr 21:256–274

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Geneletti D (2003) Biodiversity impact assessment of roads: an approach based on ecosystem rarity. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 23:343–365

    Google Scholar 

  • Gitman I, Levine MD (1970) An algorithm for detecting unimodal fuzzy sets and its application as a clustering technique. IEEE Trans Comput C-19:583–593

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gragera F, Corbacho MA, Deavalos J (1992) La repercusión del tráfico en carreteras sobre las rapaces. In: López J (ed) I Jornadas para el estudio y la prevención de la mortalidad de vertebrados en carreteras. CODA, Madrid

    Google Scholar 

  • Guisan A, Zimmermann N (2000) Predictive habitat distribution models in ecology. Ecol Model 145:111–121

    Google Scholar 

  • Hammond R, McCullagh P (1978) Quantitative techniques in geography: an introduction. Clarendon Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Hels T, Buchwald E (2001) The effect of road kills on amphibian populations. Biol Conserv 99:331–340

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hernandez M (1988) Road mortality of the little owl (Athene noctua) in Spain. J Raptor Res 22:81–84

    Google Scholar 

  • Hirzel A (2004) Biomapper 3 user’s manual. Biomapper, Lausanne

  • Hirzel A, Arlettaz R (2004) Modelling habitat suitability for complex species distributions by environmental-distance geometric mean. Environ Manage 32:614–623

    Google Scholar 

  • Hirzel A, Hausser J, Chessel D, Perrin N (2002a) Ecological-niche factor analysis: how to compute habitat-suitability maps without absence data? Ecology 83:2027–2036

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hirzel A, Hausser J, Perrin N (2002b) Biomapper 3.1. Laboratory for Conservation Biology. Biomapper, Lausanne

  • Hodson NL (1962) Some notes on the causes of bird road casualities. Bird Study 9:168–172

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hosmer D, Lemeshow S (2000) Applied logistic regression. John Wiley & Sons, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • IGP (1990) Cartas de ocupação de solo. Instituto Geográfico Português, Lisboa

  • Knapp RA, Matthews KR, Preisler HK, Jellison R (2003) Developing probablistic models to predict amphibian site occupancy in a patchy landscape. Ecol Appl 13:1069–1082

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levine N (2004a) CrimeStat III: a spatial statistics program for the analysis of crime incident locations. National Institute of Justice, Washington DC

  • Levine N (2004b) Manual of CrimeStat III. National Institute of Justice, Washington DC

  • Lodé T (2000) Effect of a motorway on mortality and isolation of wildlife populations. Ambio 29:165–168

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lourenço RF, Basto MP, Cangarato R, Álvaro MC, Oliveira VA, Coelho S, Pais MC (2002) The owl (order Strigiformes) assemblage in the north-eastern Algarve. Airo 12:25–33

    Google Scholar 

  • Lourenço R, Abelho B, Pedroso N, Santos E (2004) Introdução ao estudo das aves de rapina. CEAI, Évora

    Google Scholar 

  • Malo JE, Suarez F, Diez A (2004) Can we mitigate animal-vehicle accidents using predictive models? J Appl Ecol 41:701–710

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Manel S, Williams HC, Ormerod SJ (2001) Evaluating presence-absence models in ecology: the need to account for prevalence. J Appl Ecol 38:921–931

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marques JM (1994) Vertebrados Mortos Por Atropelamento (EN 118 Alcochete/Porto-Alto). In: Seminário sobre a avaliação do impacte ambiental de projectos rodoviários, Espinho

  • Massemin S, Maho Y, Handrich Y (1998) Seasonal pattern in age, sex and body condition of barn owls Tyto alba killed on motorways. Ibis 140:70–75

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Massemin S, Zorn T (1998) Highway mortality of barn owls in northeastern France. J Raptor Res 32:229–232

    Google Scholar 

  • Meek WR, Burman PJ, Nowakowski M, Sparks TH, Burman NJ (2003) Barn owl release in lowland southern England-a twenty-one year study. Biol Conserv 109:271–282

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Menard S (1995) Applied logistic regression analysis. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA

    Google Scholar 

  • Meunier FD, Verheyden C, Jouventin P (2000) Use of roadsides by diurnal raptors in agricultural landscapes. Biol Conserv 92:291–298

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mikkola H (1983) Owls of Europe. Poyser, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Muntaner J, Mayol J (1996) Biología y conservación de las rapaces mediterráneas, 1994. SEO, Madrid

    Google Scholar 

  • Newton I, Wyllie I, Asher A (1991) Mortality causes in British barn owls Tyto alba, with a discussion of aldrin-dieldrin poisoning. Ibis 133:162–169

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Newton I, Wyllie I, Dale L (1997) Mortality causes in British barn owls (Tyto alba), based on 1,101 carcasses examined during 1963–1996. Biol Conserv Owls North Hemisph 190:299–307

    Google Scholar 

  • Nielsen CK, Anderson RG, Grund MD (2003) Landscape influences on deer-vehicle accident areas in an urban environment. J Wildl Manag 67:46–51

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Okabe A, Yamada I (2001) The K-function method on a network and its computational implementation. Geogr Anal 33:271–290

    Google Scholar 

  • Okabe A, Okunuki K, Funamoto S (2003) SANET: a toolbox for spatial analysis on a network. Centre for Spatial Information Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo

    Google Scholar 

  • Pereira CD (1996) Regressão logística – obtenção de um modelo para o diagnóstico de asma. Dissertação do Mestrado em Probabilidades e Estatística, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa

  • Petty SJ (1989) Productivity and density of tawny owls Strix aluco in relation to the structure of a spruce forest in Britain. Ann Zool Fenn 26:227–233

    Google Scholar 

  • Pita R, Mira A, Beja P (2006) Conserving the Cabrera vole, Microtus cabrerae, in intensively used Mediterranean landscapes. Agric Ecosystems Environ 115:1–5

  • Ramp D, Caldwell J, Kathryn AE, Warton D, Croft DB (2005) Modelling of wildlife fatality hotspots along the Snowy Moutain Highway in New South Wales, Australia. Biol Conserv 126:474–490

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ramsden DJ (2003) Barn owls and major roads: results and recommendations. The Barn Owl Trust, Ashburton

    Google Scholar 

  • Rivas-Martínez S (1981) Les étages bioclimatiques de la végétacion de la Peninsule Iberique. An Jard Bot Madr 37:251–268

    Google Scholar 

  • Saeki M, Macdonald DW (2004) The effects of traffic on the raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides viverrinus) and other mammals in Japan. Biol Conserv 118:559–571

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Santos SM, Simões P, Mathias ML, Mira A (2006) Vegetation analysis in colonies of an endangered rodent, the Cabrera vole (Microtus cabrerae), in southern Portugal. Ecol Res 21:197–207

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Seiler A (2001) Ecological effects of roads. A review. Grimsö Wildlife Research Station, Dept. of Conservation Biology, University of Agricultural Sciences, Riddarhyttan

  • Shawyer CR (1987) The barn owl in the British Isles. Its past, present and future. The Hawk Trust, London

  • Sokal R, Rohlf F (1995) Biometry—the principles and practice of statistics in biological research. Freeman, New York

  • SPSS (2004) SPSS statistical software 13.0 for Windows. SPSS, Chicago

  • Tabachnik BG, Fidell LS (1996) Using multivariate statistics. Harper Collins, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor I (1994) Barn owls: predatory-prey relationships and conservation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Tomé R, Bloise C, Korpimäki E (2004) Nest-site selection and nesting success of little owls (Athene noctua) in Mediterranean woodland and open habitats. J Raptor Res 38:35–46

    Google Scholar 

  • Tucker GM, Heath MF, Tomialojc L, Grimmett RF (1994) Birds in Europe. Their conservation status. Bird Life International, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Der Reest PJ (1992) Kleine zoogdieren in nederlanse wagbermen: oecologie en beheer. Lutra 35:1–27

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank Rui Lourenço and Frederico Mestre for help solving some issues in this study. This work was supported through a master scholarship from Fundação Eugénio de Almeida to Luis Gomes.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Conservation Biology Unit, Department of Biology, University of Évora, Apartado 94, 7002-554, Evora, Portugal

    Luís Gomes, Clara Silva & António Mira

  2. Department of Animal Biology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisboa, 1749-018, Lisbon, Portugal

    Clara Grilo

Authors
  1. Luís Gomes
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Clara Grilo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Clara Silva
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. António Mira
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luís Gomes.

About this article

Cite this article

Gomes, L., Grilo, C., Silva, C. et al. Identification methods and deterministic factors of owl roadkill hotspot locations in Mediterranean landscapes. Ecol Res 24, 355–370 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-008-0515-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-008-0515-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation