Who and where: predicting road mortality risks using trait models

2018

Wildlife-vehicle collisions are a major cause of mortality for many species. Empirical estimates of road mortality show that some species are more likely to be killed than others but to what extend this variation can be explained and predicted using intrinsic characteristics remains poorly understood. This study aims to identify general patterns associated to road mortality and generate spatial and species-level predictions of risks. We fitted trait-based random forest regression models (controlling for survey characteristics) to explain 783 empirical road mortality rates from Brazil, representing 170 bird and 73 mammalian species. Fitted models were then used to make spatial and species-le…