Reptiles in danger: Implications of road mortality in wetlands of South America

What is it about?

Road Ecology is a scientific discipline that studies the effects of roads on environments and biodiversity, exploring strategies to mitigate these impacts. Even though South America has a high biodiversity and expanding road networks, only few studies analyze this situation for reptiles. Wetland routes, especially in diverse systems as the Paraná River, have an exceptional impact on the inhabiting fauna. This second largest river in South America is an ecosystem of islands and wetlands with a great richness of reptiles. Due to their biological characteristics, these animals are the most affected by road mortality. Counting on biological data and grasping the impact of road mortality due to vehicle collisions allows us to plan mitigation projects to conserve wetland species. This study analyzes the incidence of environmental and anthropogenic factors in road mortality of reptiles in the Paraná River floodplain. Additionally, we predict mortality ‘hot spots’ and ‘hot moment’ to apply appropriate mitigation measures. We detected three hot spots of reptile roadkill, where routes cross the floodplain. The most northern one was located in a protected area with records of threatened species. The most southern hot spots registered a greater proportion of aquatic species and a ‘hot moment’ was detected during autumn. This study provides a baseline for mitigating reptile mortality, focusing on specific places, moments, and taxa in wetland routes in large river areas of South America.

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