Road Zone Effects in Small-Mammal Communities
By John A. Bissonette, Silvia A. S. Rosa. 2009
91 citations recorded by the source corpus.
This study focused on the putative effects of roads on small-mammal communities in a high desert region of southern Utah. Specifically, the authors tested whether or not roads create adjacent zones characterized by lower small-mammal densities, abundance, and diversity. They sampled an abundance of small mammals at increasing distances from Interstate 15 during two summers. They recorded 11 genera and 13 species. The authors detected no clear abundance, density, or diversity effects relative to distance from the road. Only two of 13 species were never captured near roads. The abundance of the remaining 11 small mammal species was either similar at different distances from the road or higher closer to the road. The authors conclude that although roads may act as barriers and possible sources of mortality, adjacent zones of vegetation often provide favorable microhabitat in the desert landscape for many small mammals.
Subfields: Ecology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7ff6b4a217b4e9c1dc8d1ab35847e7d3529682f1
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In Ecology
- T. Rytwinski
- L. Fahrig
- Samuel A. Cushman
- K. McGarigal
- R. Pardini
- J. Metzger
- V. Arroyo‐Rodríguez
- T. Tscharntke
Citations in the corpus
- Do species life history traits explain population responses to roads? A meta-analysis (2012, background): “In fact, release from predation has been suggested as a possible cause for the frequently observed positive effects of roads on small mammal populations (Johnson and Collinge, 2004; Rytwinski and Fahrig, 2007; Bissonette and Rosa, 2009; Fahrig and Rytwinski, 2009).”