文章基本信息

标题：Wildlife Tunnel Enhances Population Viability
本地全文：下载
作者：Rodney van der Ree ; Dean Heinze ; Michael McCarthy 等
期刊名称：Ecology and Society
印刷版ISSN：1708-3087
电子版ISSN：1708-3087
出版年度：2009
卷号：14
期号：2
出版社：The Resilience Alliance
摘要：Roads and traffic are pervasive components of landscapes throughout the world: they cause wildlife mortality, disrupt animal movements, and increase the risk of extinction. Expensive engineering solutions, such as overpasses and tunnels, are increasingly being adopted to mitigate these effects. Although some species readily use such structures, their success in preventing population extinction remains unknown. Here, we use population viability modeling to assess the effectiveness of tunnels for the endangered Mountain Pygmy-possum (Burramys parvus) in Australia. The underpasses reduced, but did not completely remove, the negative effects of a road. The expected minimum population size of a “reconnected” population remained 15% lower than that of a comparable “undivided” population. We propose that the extent to which the risk of extinction decreases should be adopted as a measure of effectiveness of mitigation measures and that the use of population modeling become routine in these evaluations.
关键词：barrier effect; Burramys; population-level impacts; population viability analysis; road ecology; underpass; wildlife crossing structure