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Spatial and temporal trends in western polecat road mortality in Wales

Roads have considerable ecological effects that threaten the survival of some species, including many terrestrial carnivores. The western polecat is a small-medium sized mustelid native to Asia and Europe, including Britain where its historical stronghold is in Wales. Polecats are frequently killed...

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Autores principales: Barg, Allison, MacPherson, Jenny, Caravaggi, Anthony
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9744138/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36518279
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.14291
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author Barg, Allison
MacPherson, Jenny
Caravaggi, Anthony
author_facet Barg, Allison
MacPherson, Jenny
Caravaggi, Anthony
author_sort Barg, Allison
collection PubMed
description Roads have considerable ecological effects that threaten the survival of some species, including many terrestrial carnivores. The western polecat is a small-medium sized mustelid native to Asia and Europe, including Britain where its historical stronghold is in Wales. Polecats are frequently killed on roads and road casualties represent the most common source of data on the species in the UK. However, little is known about the factors that increase the risk of collision. We used Generalized Additive Models to explore seasonal patterns in collisions as well as using Principal Component Analysis and regression modelling to identify landscape characteristics associated with polecat road casualties in Wales. Polecat road casualties had a bimodal distribution, occurring most frequently in March and October. Casualties were more frequently associated with road density, traffic volume, presence of rabbits, habitat patchiness and the abundance of proximal improved grassland habitat. Casualties were negatively associated with elevation and the abundance of semi-natural grassland habitat. The results of this study provide a framework for understanding and mitigating the impacts of roads on polecats in their historic stronghold, hence has considerable value to polecat conservation as well as broader applicability to ecologically similar species.
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spelling pubmed-97441382022-12-13 Spatial and temporal trends in western polecat road mortality in Wales Barg, Allison MacPherson, Jenny Caravaggi, Anthony PeerJ Conservation Biology Roads have considerable ecological effects that threaten the survival of some species, including many terrestrial carnivores. The western polecat is a small-medium sized mustelid native to Asia and Europe, including Britain where its historical stronghold is in Wales. Polecats are frequently killed on roads and road casualties represent the most common source of data on the species in the UK. However, little is known about the factors that increase the risk of collision. We used Generalized Additive Models to explore seasonal patterns in collisions as well as using Principal Component Analysis and regression modelling to identify landscape characteristics associated with polecat road casualties in Wales. Polecat road casualties had a bimodal distribution, occurring most frequently in March and October. Casualties were more frequently associated with road density, traffic volume, presence of rabbits, habitat patchiness and the abundance of proximal improved grassland habitat. Casualties were negatively associated with elevation and the abundance of semi-natural grassland habitat. The results of this study provide a framework for understanding and mitigating the impacts of roads on polecats in their historic stronghold, hence has considerable value to polecat conservation as well as broader applicability to ecologically similar species. PeerJ Inc. 2022-12-01 /pmc/articles/PMC9744138/ /pubmed/36518279 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.14291 Text en ©2022 Barg et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Conservation Biology
Barg, Allison
MacPherson, Jenny
Caravaggi, Anthony
Spatial and temporal trends in western polecat road mortality in Wales
title Spatial and temporal trends in western polecat road mortality in Wales
title_full Spatial and temporal trends in western polecat road mortality in Wales
title_fullStr Spatial and temporal trends in western polecat road mortality in Wales
title_full_unstemmed Spatial and temporal trends in western polecat road mortality in Wales
title_short Spatial and temporal trends in western polecat road mortality in Wales
title_sort spatial and temporal trends in western polecat road mortality in wales
topic Conservation Biology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9744138/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36518279
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.14291
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