Clara Grilo

Roads represent a threat to biodiversity, primarily through increased mortality from collisions with vehicles. Although estimating roadkill rates is an important first step, how roads affect long‐term population persistence must also be assessed. We developed a trait‐based model to predict roadkill rates for terrestrial bird and mammalian species in Europe and used a generalized population model to estimate their long‐term vulnerability to road mortality. We found that ~194 million birds and ~29 million mammals may be killed each year on European roads. The species that were predicted to experience the highest mortality rates due to roads were not necessarily the same as those whose long‐term persistence was most vulnerable to road mortality. When evaluating which species or areas could be most affected by road development projects, failure to consider how roadkill affects populations may result in misidentifying appropriate targets for mitigation.

The influence of human aesthetic appreciation of animal species on public attitudes towards their conservation and related decision-making has been studied in industrialized countries but remains underexplored in developing countries. Working in three agropastoralist communities around Amboseli National Park, southern Kenya, we investigated the relative strength of human aesthetic appreciation on local attitudes towards the conservation of wildlife species. Using semi-structured interviewing and free listing (n = 191) as part of a mixed methods approach, we first characterized local aesthetic judgments of wildlife species. With a Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMM) approach, we then determined the influence of perceiving four species as beautiful on local support for their protection ("rescuing them"), and of perceiving four other species as ugly on support for their removal from the area, while controlling for informant personal and household socioeconomic attributes. Perceiving giraffe, gazelles and eland as beautiful is the strongest variable explaining support for rescuing them. Ugliness is the strongest variable influencing support for the removal of buffalo, hyena, and elephant (but not lion). Both our qualitative and quantitative results suggest that perceptions of ugly species could become more positive through direct exposure to those species. We propose that protected areas in developing countries facilitate visitation by local residents to increase their familiarity with species they rarely see or most frequently see in conflict with human interests. Since valuing a species for its beauty requires seeing it, protected areas in developing countries should connect the people who live around them with the animals they protect. Our results also show that aesthetic appreciation of biodiversity is not restricted to the industrialized world.

Abstract Aim Land‐use change is a major threat to biodiversity globally. Roads cause direct mortality and limitation of individual movements, which may isolate populations and affect their viability in the long term. Here we provide the first comprehensive global assessment of the exposure of terrestrial mammalian carnivores to roads using an integrated modelling framework. Location Global. Methods We estimated critical road densities and critical patch sizes for each species based on a spatially explicit model and life‐history traits. We calculated the distribution of landscape fragment sizes for each carnivore species by intersecting global road density with each species range. The proportion of a species’ geographical range with fragments below the critical patch size is used as an index of the vulnerability to roads. Results We found that the carnivores expected to be most exposed to roads belong to families Felidae, Ursidae, Mustelidae, Canidae and Procyonidae. Approximately one‐third of the species most affected have not been identified by the IUCN as threatened by roads. Our model projects time to extinction that may be as low as one century for some species, such as the endangered Iberian lynx. Species are expected to be more exposed in areas with medium to high road density but, surprisingly, also in areas where road density is relatively low. Hotspots of the number of species locally endangered by roads occur in North America and Asia. Main conclusions Our results suggest the need to reassess the status and threats of those species that have not been previously recognized as strongly affected by roads. Our framework can be applied at different spatial scales, to assess the effects of the development of the road network and inform prioritization schemes for road building, and to identify areas for conservation, and species requiring particular mitigation and restoration measures.