Limited evidence for negative effects of highway widening on North American large mammals
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Limited evidence for negative effects of highway widening on North American large mammals Sean P. Boyle 1,2 & Jacqueline D. Litzgus 1 & David Lesbarrères 1 Received: 10 October 2019 / Revised: 11 August 2020 / Accepted: 13 October 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Roads are one of the most severe threats to wildlife globally because of their pervasive and linear nature. Despite considerable attention afforded to road-effects on animals generally, little information is available concerning the specific impacts of road widening, also known as twinning or highway expansion. To address this gap, we monitored the abundance and distribution of large mammals adjacent to an 18-km section of highway in Ontario, Canada, that underwent expansion from a two-lane to a fourlane, divided highway, over 4 years. We expected to observe an initial decrease in large mammal track abundance and an increased distance from the highway, followed by a period of habituation during which track abundance and proximity to the highway would return to baseline levels. To quantify the effects of highway expansion, we monitored snow-tracks of three ungulates, two felids, and three canids on transects extending perpendicular and parallel to the highway. Our analyses revealed that proximity was species-specific and varied seasonally, but we found little evidence that the new four-lane highway alignment affected the movement ecology of large mammals in our study area. Limited increases in traffic volume could partially explain why we detected no change; however, traffic volume will rise. Although road widening is common for accommodating increased traffic volume, no studies have explicitly investigated its effects on animal movement ecology. Our findings suggest that increasing the footprint of existing roads, rather than building new roads, may be a suitable solution for accommodating increasing traffic with minimal impacts on adjacent large mammal communities. Keywords Road-effect zone . Road expansion . Highway twining . Ungulates . Canids . Snow-tracking . Abundance . Road-avoidance
Introduction Globally, biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented rate because of rapid human-induced environmental changes and the destruction of important habitats (Ceballos et al. 2017). One of the largest anthropogenic drivers of habitat alteration is the ever-increasing sprawl of road networks (Laurance et al. 2014). To wildlife, roads are both a source of mortality via wildlife-vehicle collisions and a source of habitat
This article is part of the Topical Collection on Road Ecology Guest Editor: Marcello D’Amico * David Lesbarrères [email protected] 1
Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada
2
Present address: Memorial University, Newfoundland and Labrador St. John’s, Canada
fragmentation, either because they create a physical barrier or because animals actively avoid them (Trombulak and Frissell 2000; Seiler 2001; Jaeger and Fahrig 2004; Coffin 2007). Roads can inhibit gene flow
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