Dataset Information

Temporal patterns in road crossing behaviour in roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) at sites with wildlife warning reflectors.

ABSTRACT: Every year, there are millions of documented vehicle collisions involving cervids across Europe and North America. While temporal patterns in collision occurrence are relatively well described, few studies have targeted deer behaviour as a critical component of collision prevention. In this study, we investigated weekly and daily patterns in road crossing behaviour in roe deer. Using road crossing events and movement data obtained from GPS telemetry, we employed mixed-effect models to explain frequency and timing of crossings at five road segments by a number of predictors including traffic volume, deer movement activity and the presence of wildlife warning reflectors. We analysed 13,689 road crossing events by 32 study animals. Individual variation in crossing frequency was high but daily patterns in crossing events were highly consistent among animals. Variation in the intensity of movement activity on a daily and seasonal scale was the main driver of road crossing behaviour. The seasonal variation in crossing frequency reflected differences in movement activity throughout the reproductive cycle, while daily variation in the probability to cross exhibited a clear nocturnal emphasis and reflected crepuscular activity peaks. The frequency of road crossings increased as a function of road density in the home-range, while traffic volume only exerted marginal effects. Movement activity of roe deer in our study coincided with commuter traffic mainly in the early morning and late afternoon during winter and during periods of high spatial activity such as the rut. Both timing and frequency of crossing events remained unchanged in the presence of reflectors. Our results emphasise the importance of behavioural studies for understanding roe deer vehicle-collision patterns and thus provide important information for collision prevention. We suggest that mitigation of collision risk should focus on strategic seasonal measures and animal warning systems targeting drivers.

SUBMITTER: Kammerle JL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5617160 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Temporal patterns in road crossing behaviour in roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) at sites with wildlife warning reflectors.

Kämmerle Jim-Lino JL Brieger Falko F Kröschel Max M Hagen Robert R Storch Ilse I Suchant Rudi R

PloS one 20170927 9

Every year, there are millions of documented vehicle collisions involving cervids across Europe and North America. While temporal patterns in collision occurrence are relatively well described, few studies have targeted deer behaviour as a critical component of collision prevention. In this study, we investigated weekly and daily patterns in road crossing behaviour in roe deer. Using road crossing events and movement data obtained from GPS telemetry, we employed mixed-effect models to explain fr ...[more]

PMID: 28953951

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Project description:Background. Understanding species distribution, especially areas of overlapping habitat between sympatric species, is essential for informing conservation through natural habitat protection. New protection strategies should simultaneously consider conservation efforts for multiple species that exist within the same landscape, which requires studies that include habitat overlap analysis. Methods. We estimated the potential habitat of cervids, which are typical ungulates in northern China, using the present locations of red deer (Cervus elaphus; N = 90) and roe deer (Capreolus capreolus; N = 106) in a Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) model. Our study area was a human-dominated landscape in the Tieli Forestry Bureau located at the southern slope of the Lesser Xing'an Mountains. We grouped 17 environmental predictor variables into five predictor classes (terrain, habitat accessibility, land cover, vegetation feature, and interference), which were used to build habitat suitability models. Results. Habitat accessibility and human interferences were found to have the strongest influence on habitat suitability among the five variable classes. Among the environmental factors, distance to farmland (26.8%), distance to bush-grass land (14.6%), elevation (13.5%), and distance to water source (12.2%) were most important for red deer, distance to farmland (22.9%), distance to settlement (21.4%), elevation (11.6%), and coverage of shrub-grass (8%) were most important for roe deer. Model accuracy was high for both species (mean area under the curve (AUC) = 0.936 for red deer and 0.924 for roe deer). The overlapping habitat comprised 89.93 km(2) within the study area, which occupied 94% of potentially suitable habitat for red deer and 27% for roe deer. Conclusions. In terms of habitat suitability, roe deer showed greater selectivity than red deer. The overlapping habitat was mostly located in the eastern mountains. The southwestern plain was not a suitable habitat for deer because it was close to Tieli City. Regarding management measures, we suggest that priority protection should be given to the potential areas of overlapping deer habitats found in this study.

Dataset Information

Temporal patterns in road crossing behaviour in roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) at sites with wildlife warning reflectors.

Publications

Temporal patterns in road crossing behaviour in roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) at sites with wildlife warning reflectors.

Similar Datasets

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