Evaluating the Urban-Rural Differences in the Environmental Factors Affecting Amphibian Roadkill

Jingxuan Zhao, Weiyu Yu (), Kun He, Kun Zhao, Chunliang Zhou, Jim A. Wright and Fayun Li ()
Additional contact information
Jingxuan Zhao: School of Ecological Technology and Engineering, Shanghai Institute of Technology, Fengxian Campus, Shanghai 201418, China
Weiyu Yu: School of Ecological Technology and Engineering, Shanghai Institute of Technology, Fengxian Campus, Shanghai 201418, China
Kun He: School of Ecological Technology and Engineering, Shanghai Institute of Technology, Fengxian Campus, Shanghai 201418, China
Kun Zhao: School of Ecological Technology and Engineering, Shanghai Institute of Technology, Fengxian Campus, Shanghai 201418, China
Chunliang Zhou: School of Ecological Technology and Engineering, Shanghai Institute of Technology, Fengxian Campus, Shanghai 201418, China
Jim A. Wright: School of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Southampton, Building 44, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK
Fayun Li: School of Ecological Technology and Engineering, Shanghai Institute of Technology, Fengxian Campus, Shanghai 201418, China

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 7, 1-16

Abstract: Roads have major impacts on wildlife, and the most direct negative effect is through deadly collisions with vehicles, i.e., roadkill. Amphibians are the most frequently road-killed animal group. Due to the significant differences between urban and rural environments, the potential urban-rural differences in factors driving amphibian roadkill risks should be incorporated into the planning of mitigation measures. Drawing on a citizen-collected roadkill dataset from Taiwan island, we present a MaxEnt based modelling analysis to examine potential urban-rural differences in landscape features and environmental factors associated with amphibian road mortality. By incorporating with the Global Human Settlement Layer Settlement Model—an ancillary human settlement dataset divided by built-up area and population density—amphibian roadkill data were divided into urban and rural data sets, and then used to create separate models for urban and rural areas. Model diagnostics suggested good performance (all AUCs > 0.8) of both urban and rural models. Multiple variable importance evaluations revealed significant differences between urban and rural areas. The importance of environmental variables was evaluated based on percent contribution, permutation importance and the Jackknife test. According to the overall results, road density was found to be important in explaining the amphibian roadkill in rural areas, whilst precipitation of warmest quarter was found to best explain the amphibian roadkill in the urban context. The method and outputs illustrated in this study can be useful tools to better understand amphibian road mortality in urban and rural environments and to inform mitigation assessment and conservation planning.

Keywords: roadkill; road mortality; amphibian; MaxEnt; applied spatial modelling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/7/6051/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/7/6051/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:7:p:6051-:d:1112738

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().