Benefits and challenges of collaborating with volunteers: Examples from National Wildlife Roadkill Reporting Systems in Europe

Opportunities and challenges for monitoring a recolonizing large herbivore using citizen science

Monitoring is a prerequisite for evidence-based wildlife management and conservation planning, yet conventional monitoring approaches are often ineffective for species occurring at low densities. However, some species such as large mammals are often observed by lay people and this information can be leveraged through citizen science monitoring schemes. To ensure that such wildlife monitoring efforts provide robust inferences, assessing the quantity, quality, and potential biases of citizen science data is crucial. For Eurasian moose (Alces alces), a species currently recolonizing north-eastern Germany and occurring in very low numbers, we applied three citizen science tools: a mail/email report system, a smartphone application, and a webpage. Among these monitoring tools, the mail/email report system yielded the greatest number of moose reports in absolute and in standardized (corrected for time effort) terms. The reported moose were predominantly identified as single, adult, male individuals, and reports occurred mostly during late summer. Overlaying citizen science data with independently generated habitat suitability and connectivity maps showed that members of the public detected moose in suitable habitats but not necessarily in movement corridors. Also, moose detections were often recorded near roads, suggestive of spatial bias in the sampling effort. Our results suggest that citizen science-based data collection can be facilitated by brief, intuitive digital reporting systems. However, inference from the resulting data can be limited due to unquantified and possibly biased sampling effort. To overcome these challenges, we offer specific recommendations such as more structured monitoring efforts involving the public in areas likely to be roamed by moose for improving quantity, quality, and analysis of citizen science-based data for making robust inferences.

Better safe than sorry - Understanding the attitude and habits of drivers can help mitigating animal-vehicle collisions

The rapidly growing global road networks put serious pressures on terrestrial ecosystems and increase the number and severity of human-wildlife conflicts, which in most cases manifest in animal-vehicle collisions (AVCs). AVCs pose serious problems both for biodiversity conservation and traffic safety: each year, millions of vertebrates are roadkilled globally and the related economic damage is also substantial. For a comprehensive understanding of factors influencing AVC it is essential to explore the human factor, that is, the habits and attitude of drivers; however, to date, comprehensive surveys are lacking on this topic. Here we addressed this knowledge gap and surveyed the habits of drivers and their experience and attitude towards AVCs by a comprehensive questionnaire covering a large geographical area and involving a large number of respondents (1942 completed questionnaires). We aimed to reveal how driving habits affect the chance of AVC, and explored the attitude of the drivers regarding AVC. We found that the number of lifetime AVC cases was higher for male drivers, for those who drove longer distances per year, had more driven years, used country roads or drove large vehicles. Our results showed that almost half of the drivers surveyed had experienced at least one AVC in their lifetime. Drivers' attitudes towards the importance of nature conservation or traffic safety in the aspect of AVC, and fear of collision showed a significant correlation with experienced AVC cases. Drivers' opinions indicated that the most trusted and desired AVC prevention measures were physical objects such as fences and wildlife crossings. Our research provides guidelines for developing targeted initiatives in the future to increase awareness about the significance of AVC and target those drivers who are most vulnerable to AVC.

Income optimization of rice paddy farmers in the narrow fields during the covid-19 pandemic in South Sumatra province

This study aims to analyze the amount of income through business diversification as well as scenarios for increasing income in business diversification during the Covid-19 pandemic. The research method used is the survey method, the sampling method used is a snowball and the number of respondents is determined by purposive sampling with 100 respondents. The study results show that the amount of optimization of the income of lowland rice farmers during the Covid-19 pandemic at a business diversification of 1 Rp. 29,130,500.00, business diversification 2 Rp. 19,007,006.29, business diversification 3 Rp. 8,301,257.48, business diversification 4 Rp. 14,877,500.00. The amount of farmer's income after the scenarios for business diversification 1 is carried out with additional capital of Rp. 1,870,000 so that the optimal allocation result will be an increase in income of Rp. 2,871,644.88 or 9.86%. Business diversification 2 is carried out with additional capital of Rp. 750,000 and a reduction of the workforce by 5 JOK so that the optimal allocation result will be an increase in income of Rp. 1,472,001.57 or 7.74%. Business diversification 3, it is carried out with additional capital of Rp. 370,000 and the addition of 4 JOK workers so that the optimal allocation result will be an increase in income of Rp. 978,173.65 or 11.78%. Business diversification 4 is carried out by increasing the land area by 0.25 so that it becomes 1 hectare and increasing capital by Rp. 500,000 so that the optimal allocation of income increases by Rp. 733,061.37 or 4.93.

‘Animals under wheels’: Wildlife roadkill data collection by citizen scientists as a part of their nature recording activities

‘Animals under wheels’ is a citizen science driven project that has collected almost 90,000 roadkill records from Flanders, Belgium, mainly between 2008 and 2020. However, until now, the platform and results have never been presented comprehensively to the scientific community and we highlight strengths and challenges of this system. Data collection occurred using the subsite www.dierenonderdewielen.be (‘animals under wheels’) or the multi-purpose biodiversity platform observation.org and the apps, allowing the registration of roadkill and living organisms alike. We recorded 4,314 citizen scientists who contributed with at least a single roadkill record (207-1,314 active users per year). Non-roadkill records were registered by 85% of these users and the median time between registration of the first and last record was over 6 years, indicating a very high volunteer retention. Based on photographs presented with the roadkill records (n = 7,687), volunteer users correctly identified 98.2% of the species. Vertebrates represent 99% of all roadkill records. Over 145,000 km of transects were monitored, resulting in 1,726 mammal and 2,041 bird victims. Carcass encounter rates and composition of the top 10 detected species list was dependent on monitoring speed. Roadkill data collected during transects only represented 6% of all roadkill data available in the dataset. The remaining 60,478 bird and mammal roadkill records were opportunistically collected. The top species list, based on the opportunistically collected roadkill data, is clearly biased towards larger, enigmatic species. Although indirect evidence showed an increase in search effort for roadkill from 2010-2020, the number of roadkill records did not increase, indicating that roadkills are diminishing. Mitigation measures preventing roadkill could have had an effect on this, but decrease in population densities was likely to (partially) influence this result. As a case study, the mammal roadkill data were explored. We used linear regressions for the 17 most registered mammal species, determining per species if the relative proportion per year changed significantly between 2010 and 2020 (1 significant decrease, 7 significant increases). We investigated the seasonal patterns in roadkill for the 17 mammal species, and patterns per species were consistent over the years, although restrictions on human movement, due to COVID-19, influenced the seasonal pattern for some species in 2020. In conclusion, citizen scientists are a very valuable asset in investigating wildlife roadkill. While we present the results from Flanders, the platform and apps are freely available for projects anywhere in the world.

A decrease in reports on road-killed animals based on citizen science during COVID-19 lockdown

BACKGROUND

To avoid the uncontrolled spread of COVID-19 in early 2020, many countries have implemented strict lockdown measures for several weeks. In Austria, the lockdown in early spring has led to a significant drop in human outdoor activities, especially in road traffic. In Project Roadkill, a citizen science project which aims to collect data on road-killed animals, we observed a significant decrease in reported roadkills.

METHODS

By asking the citizen scientists through a survey how their travelling routines were affected, we investigated if the observed decrease in roadkills was grounded in less animals being killed by traffic, or in citizen scientists staying at home and thus reporting less road-killed animals.

RESULTS

A majority of the respondents stated that they felt to have reported less roadkills during the lockdown, regardless if they changed their travelling routine or not. This observation in combination with the overall decrease in road traffic indicates that fewer animals were killed during the lockdown. We conclude that when analyzing citizen science data, the effects of lockdown measures on reporting behaviour should be considered, because they can significantly affect data and interpretation of these data.

Temporal patterns of wildlife roadkill in the UK

Wildlife-vehicle collisions are one of the main causes of mortality for wild mammals and birds in the UK. Here, using a dataset of 54,000+ records collated by a citizen science roadkill recording scheme between 2014-2019, we analyse and present temporal patterns of wildlife roadkill of the 19 most commonly reported taxa in the UK (84% of all reported roadkill). Most taxa (13 out of 19) showed significant and consistent seasonal variations in road mortality and fitted one of two seasonal patterns; bimodal or unimodal: only three species (red fox Vulpes vulpes, European polecat Mustela putorius and Reeves' muntjac deer Muntiacus reevesi) showed no significant seasonality. Species that increase movement in spring and autumn potentially have bimodal patterns in roadkill due to the increase in mate-searching and juvenile dispersal during these respective time periods (e.g. European badger Meles meles). Unimodal patterns likely represent increased mortality due to a single short pulse in activity associated with breeding (e.g. birds) or foraging (e.g. grey squirrels Sciurus carolinensis in autumn). Importantly, these patterns also indicate periods of increased risk for drivers, potentially posing a greater threat to human welfare. In addition to behaviour-driven annual patterns, abiotic factors (temperature and rainfall) explained some variance in roadkill. Notably, high rainfall was associated with decreased observations of two bird taxa (gulls and Eurasian magpies Pica pica) and European rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus. By quantifying seasonal patterns in roadkill, we highlight a significant anthropogenic impact on wild species, which is important in relation to conservation, animal welfare, and human safety.

COVID-19 related travel restrictions prevented numerous wildlife deaths on roads: A comparative analysis of results from 11 countries

Millions of wild animals are killed annually on roads worldwide. During spring 2020, the volume of road traffic was reduced globally as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. We gathered data on wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVC) from Czechia, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Israel, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and for Scotland and England within the United Kingdom. In all studied countries WVC statistics tend to be dominated by large mammals (various deer species and wild boar), while information on smaller mammals as well as birds are less well recorded. The expected number of WVC for 2020 was predicted on the basis of 2015-2019 WVC time series representing expected WVC numbers under normal traffic conditions. Then, the forecasted and reported WVC data were compared. The results indicate varying levels of WVC decrease between countries during the COVID-19 related traffic flow reduction (CRTR). While no significant change was determined in Sweden, where the state-wide response to COVID-19 was the least intensive, a decrease as marked as 37.4% was identified in Estonia. The greatest WVC decrease, more than 40%, was determined during the first weeks of CRTR for Estonia, Spain, Israel, and Czechia. Measures taken during spring 2020 allowed the survival of large numbers of wild animals which would have been killed under normal traffic conditions. The significant effects of even just a few weeks of reduced traffic, help to highlight the negative impacts of roads on wildlife mortality and the need to boost global efforts of wildlife conservation, including systematic gathering of roadkill data.

The effect of wildlife carcass underreporting on KDE+ hotspots identification and importance

Many approaches have been developed in order to mitigate wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVC), their causes and consequences. Reliable data on the amount and location of killed animals along roads are therefore necessary. The existing WVC databases are usually, however, far from complete. This data underreporting causes problems when identifying the riskiest places along a transportation infrastructure. WVC data underreporting can distort the results of WVC hotspots determination. In this work, we simulated WVC hotspots identification and stability under various rates of WVC data underreporting. Our aim was to investigate whether WVC hotspots can be found at the original locations even when data are strongly underreported. We applied the KDE + method for WVC hotspots identification. The KDE + method also allows for hotspots ranking according to cluster strength and collective risk. These two measures were then used for detection of diminishing hotspot signals with a rising level of underreporting. We found that WVC hotspots with a greater cluster strength suffered less from underreporting whereas hotspots will lower values of both cluster strength and collective risk were not detected when underreporting in the data increased. Hotspots with a cluster strength above 0.5 were almost always detected when data underreporting remained below 50%. More than 50% of these hotspots (with cluster strength above 0.5) were detectable even when underreporting rate was between 50 and 80%. We further studied the effects of both spatial and temporal underreporting. Whereas temporal change of underreporting was not a problem in hotspots detection, spatial underreporting introduced significant errors producing both false positive and false negative results (hotspots). We conclude that both researchers and practitioners should be aware of the phenomenon of underreporting and should also try to maintain the same sampling effort of spatial reporting.

Impacts and Potential Mitigation of Road Mortality for Hedgehogs in Europe

Transport infrastructure is a pervasive element in modern landscapes and continues to expand to meet the demands of a growing human population and its associated resource consumption. Road-induced mortality is often thought to be a major contributor to the marked declines of European hedgehog populations. This review synthesizes available evidence on the population-level impacts of road mortality and the threat to population viability for the five hedgehog species in Europe. Local and national studies suggest that road mortality can cause significant depletions in population sizes, predominantly removing adult males. Traffic collisions are a probable cause of fragmentation effects, subsequently undermining ecological processes such as dispersal, as well as the genetic variance and fitness of isolated populations. Further studies are necessary to improve population estimates and explicitly examine the consequences of sex- and age-specific mortality rates. Hedgehogs have been reported to use crossing structures, such as road tunnels, yet evaluations of mitigation measures for population survival probability are largely absent. This highlights the need for robust studies that consider population dynamics and genetics in response to mitigation. In light of ongoing declines of hedgehog populations, it is paramount that applied research is prioritised and integrated into a holistic spatial planning process.

The Australian Roadkill Reporting Project-Applying Integrated Professional Research and Citizen Science to Monitor and Mitigate Roadkill in Australia

Simple Summary

Australia has no database of national roadkill. The current research project fills that knowledge gap by developing a roadkill reporting application that enables professional and citizen scientists to record photographs of roadkill with location, time and date. This embodies the concept of ‘One Welfare’ as it affects humans, animals and the environment. Uploaded to a website, these data can identify roadkill hotspots, tabulate species of animals killed and potentially be used for ecological studies of roadkill numbers, species distribution, population trends, animal behaviour and disease. Initial results indicate that mammal roadkill mostly occurs at night and that of birds and reptiles during daytime. Mammals make up three-quarters of the roadkill recorded and this includes endangered species. Two examples of roadkill hotspots are shown in Queensland and Tasmania. These will enable further research to suggest how roadkill mitigation measures may be optimally employed.

Abstract

Australia has no national roadkill monitoring scheme. To address this gap in knowledge, a roadkill reporting application (app) was developed to allow members of the public to join professional researchers in gathering Australian data. The app is used to photograph roadkill and simultaneously records the GPS location, time and date. These data are uploaded immediately to a website for data management. To illustrate the capacity to facilitate cost-effective mitigation measures the article focuses on two roadkill hotspots—in Queensland and Tasmania. In total, 1609 reports were gathered in the first three months of the project. They include data on mammals (n = 1203, 75%), birds (n = 125, 7.8%), reptiles (n = 79, 4.9%), amphibians (n = 4, 0.025%), unidentified (n = 189, 11.8%) and unserviceable ones (n = 9). A significant finding is variance in the distribution of mammals and birds at different times of day. These findings reflect diurnal variation in the activity levels of different species and underline the need for data on a targeted species to be collected at appropriate times of day. By continuing to facilitate roadkill monitoring, it is anticipated that the data generated by the app will directly increase knowledge of roadkill numbers and hotspots. Indirectly, it will provide value-added information on animal behaviour, disease and population dynamics as well as for species distribution mapping.