10.5061/DRYAD.C3TG3
Planillo, Aimara
Autonomous University of Madrid
Malo, Juan E.
Autonomous University of Madrid
Data from: Infrastructure features outperform environmental variables
explaining rabbit abundance around motorways
Dryad
dataset
2018
Anthropocene
Oryctolagus cuniculus
environmental factors
European rabbit
motorway features
2018-12-04T00:00:00Z
2018-12-04T00:00:00Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.3709
23700 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Human disturbance is widespread across landscapes in the form of roads
that alter wildlife populations. Knowing which road features are
responsible for the species response and their relevance in comparison
with environmental variables will provide useful information for effective
conservation measures. We sampled relative abundance of European rabbits,
a very widespread species, in motorway verges at regional scale, in an
area with large variability in environmental and infrastructure
conditions. Environmental variables included vegetation structure, plant
productivity, distance to water sources, and altitude. Infrastructure
characteristics were the type of vegetation in verges, verge width,
traffic volume, and the presence of embankments. We performed a variance
partitioning analysis to determine the relative importance of two sets of
variables on rabbit abundance. Additionally, we identified the most
important variables and their effects model averaging after model
selection by AICc on hypothesis-based models. As a group, infrastructure
features explained four times more variability in rabbit abundance than
environmental variables, being the effects of the former critical in
motorway stretches located in altered landscapes with no available habitat
for rabbits, such as agricultural fields. Model selection and Akaike
weights showed that verge width and traffic volume are the most important
variables explaining rabbit abundance index, with positive and negative
effects, respectively. In the light of these results, the response of
species to the infrastructure can be modulated through the modification of
motorway features, being some of them manageable in the design phase. The
identification of such features leads to suggestions for improvement
through low-cost corrective measures and conservation plans. As a general
indication, keeping motorway verges less than 10 m wide will prevent high
densities of rabbits and avoid the unwanted effects that rabbit
populations can generate in some areas.
Data_rabbit abund motorway_DryadThese data consist of estimates of rabbit
abundance index (Oryctolagus cuniculus) measured at 99 motorway stretches
of 50m in Central Spain in 2010, together with environmental and
infrastructure variables characterizing those stretches.
Spain