major transportation infrastructures

How Roads Impact Wildlife – Anthropogenic Noise

rocarroll Wildlife June 12, 2020June 12, 2020anthropogenic noise, future directions, impacts from noise, impacts from roads, impacts to wildlife, major transportation infrastructures, road ecology, roads 0 Comment

From the major transportation infrastructures we use everyday of our lives, from highways to simple roads through the suburbs, we as humans may not notice the effects of a vehicle driving on a road. What is not noticed enough is the amount of anthropogenic noise produced from roads and traffic, and how this in turn effects the wildlife around us. How does anthropogenic noise effect our wildlife species, and how can we resolve this issue?

Roads & Traffic – Too Noisy?

Through human development, anthropogenic noise is introduced into the environment across multiple aspects of terrestrial landscapes; this includes, but is not limited to, airports, roads, and highways. Anthropogenic noise is known as a global phenomenon in today’s world, having the potential to impact wildlife species across every continent and habitat type.

Transportation systems are one of the most pervasive sources of anthropogenic noise across every landscape, including from sources such as roads and the traffic volume associated with it. Roads are very widespread and produce an increased amount of noise; though they may seem to cover a small surface area, the ecological impacts of roads and the noise associated with them extend well beyond a road itself. Anthropogenic noise from roads affects about one fifth of landscapes in the U.S., becoming problematic for wildlife due to the noise volume produced being very loud.

Anthropogenic noise also has varying characteristics that differentiate from the sources it comes from, such as the amplitude (or loudness), frequency (or pitch), and spatial and temporal patterns of the noise; this in turn determines the impact noise has on wildlife. This noise can affect wildlife both at an individual level and at a population level.

How Anthropogenic Noise Impacts Wildlife

On an individual level, wildlife are impacted by anthropogenic noise through the acute impacts noise can cause; these effects include physiological damage, masking of communication, disruption of behavior, and startling to an individual animal. Physiological damage to an individual animal can cause the animal’s inability to hear, either by permanently damaging the auditory system causing a permanent threshold shift (PTS) in the individual’s hearing, or by temporary reductions in the animal’s hearing sensitivity, known as temporary threshold shifts (TTS).

In terms of masking an animal’s communication, this happens when an animal perceiving a sound is impacted by the background noise (i.e., anthropogenic noise) and cannot make out the acoustic communication being relayed because it is masked. If this occurs, this will ultimately cause a decrease in acoustic communication between individuals or species. Acoustic communication is used by animals to attract and have mates, distinguish territory, promote social bonding, and alert others if a predator is nearby. If anthropogenic noise masks the acoustic communication, this can have dramatic effects on reproduction and survival of a species.

Anthropogenic noise can also cause an individual animal to suffer from chronic effects, such as elevated stress levels and associated physiological responses with it; this in turn can cause long-term welfare and survival consequences from anthropogenic noise effecting an animal.

Anthropogenic noise effects wildlife at a population level through how it can range from causing things such as population decline up to a regional extinction of a species. This is especially critical for species that are threatened or endangered due to habitat loss; if a species begins to avoid even more habitats due to anthropogenic noise, their status becomes more critical and could result in possible extinction.

Wildlife species have varied responses in their tolerability to anthropogenic noise due to their altered acoustic environments. For example, when a major transportation infrastructure is placed into an environment, studies have shown that the amount of species present near the road are greatly reduced from what they were before the road was placed; this majorly due to the road itself and the associated anthropogenic noise coming from it.

Anthropogenic noise coming from roads can also mask the communication of species, as stated above, and cause a decrease in their acoustic communication and in turn effect their reproduction and survival as a whole. However, how can we as humans reduce the amount of anthropogenic noise produced from our major transportation infrastructures to reduce the impacts it has on our wildlife?

Future Directions for Anthropogenic Noise

Though human development and the associated anthropogenic noise are rapidly spreading in our advanced world, there may not always be a logistically, politically, or economically feasible way to eliminate or even minimize anthropogenic noise altogether. However, there is a common approach that can be used, being to set noise standards for when major transportation infrastructures are implemented in hopes to limit the level of noise being produced into the environment. This would mean that when a road or highway is implemented, the noise production can be reduced either operationally or structurally to meet the noise standards.

An example of this can be shown through how road noise can be decreased by using specific types of asphalt, though this could also cause the road’s surface to have lower durability and traction. Another solution to reduce road noise could be to implement noise barriers along a road, however, these may also cut off migration routes and enhance rather than decrease the road impacts overall. So, how do we go about decreasing the anthropogenic noise imposed onto the wildlife around us?

Most of environmentalists researching this have discussed using a single noise standard that covers all anthropogenic noise situations; however, this does not account for all species and how the anthropogenic noise impacts each individual species. Rather than using a single noise standard, there should be a set of standards established that would be based off the measurement of sensitivities for species in specific concern or in a specific habitat location or type. If this set of standards were developed, this would be that wildlife would not suffer as much from the anthropogenic noise produced from human structures, while addressing how sensitive each species is to anthropogenic noise. We as humans don’t like hearing too much background noise and having it affect us daily, causing us things such as stress or not being able to effectively communicate with others. Why should let our wildlife be susceptible to this?

How Roads Impact Wildlife – Indirect Effects to Our Wildlife Species

rocarroll Wildlife June 9, 2020June 24, 2020chain reaction, degradation, disturbances, habitat loss, impacts from roads, impacts to wildlife, increased human exploitation, indirect effects, major transportation infrastructures, road avoidance, road ecology, roads, solutions, solutions for wildlife 0 Comment

Roads impact wildlife in a variety of ways, as seen through my many blog posts concerning this topic and issue. However, the one major thing I have not yet discussed about how roads impact wildlife is exactly what happens to our wildlife in terms of their diversity and size. Roads can cause a chain effect of reactions to occur in the environment, including diminishing species one by one, gradually decreasing the size of their population.

Wildlife are Gradually Disappearing

Major transportation infrastructures (i.e., roads, railways, and canals) are impacting our wildlife across an array of linear landscapes, making wildlife become disproportionate to the area of habitat they occupy. As we know, roads impose an array of impacts to wildlife, including wildlife mortality, wildlife-vehicle collisions, and limited movement from habitat to habitat. However, what is of major concern is the indirect effects roads cause to our wildlife populations, such as reduced access to habitat due to road avoidance or human exploitation. The indirect effects are the ones of major concern, especially those occurring from bigger transportation infrastructures such as highways. Highways present more serious and harmful threats to wildlife and impact a much larger range of wildlife species, presenting impassable barriers for species to move around their environment. The major concerns of highways, and transportation infrastructures in general, and their indirect effects include, but are not limited to, direct loss of habitat, degradation of habitat quality, road avoidance, and human exploitation.

The Indirect Effects

Direct loss of habitat is one of the indirect effects wildlife experience from our roads and highways. Construction of major transportation infrastructures changes the value of the habitat within the landscape. Areas that used to flourish in the environment that are now covered by pavement, rails, or travel lanes with dirt and/or gravel are now vastly diminished to be used by wildlife as habitat. Transportation infrastructures also cause the quality of a habitat to degrade, causing things such as storm water discharge, alterations in stream hydrology, air emissions, and invasive plant species to occur; this can degrade a habitat not just where the transportation infrastructure is placed, but several hundred meters or even miles away from the road itself.

Due to roads running through wildlife habitat or landscapes wildlife use, wildlife become accustomed to avoid roads. Some species of wildlife will avoid areas adjacent or close to highways or roads due to the amount of noise and/or human activity associated with roads in general. Avoiding areas near roads can cause wildlife to be restricted in their ability to move around in their environment, limit the resources they can access, and limit the amount of food they are able to forage for. Roads are also associated with human activity to wildlife, which means increased human exploitation in these areas; roads increase the access for humans to hunt or poach in the environment. This effect can potentially cause wildlife populations near roadway areas to be vastly reduced, leading to wildlife becoming more road avoidant in the future. How can these indirect effects to wildlife from roads be resolved, even just a little, to help our species of the earth?

The Solution to the Indirect Effects

Based off an article I found about this issue imposed onto our wildlife, there are already progressions being made with resolutions to the issue of indirect effects from road systems. One solution is to foster a greater appreciation for the issues caused by highways and railways; this is a challenge currently because it emphasizes the understanding people need to have for the scope and complexity transportation infrastructures pose on wildlife. The issue is sometimes too often viewed as incidental to the animal rather than a threat to wildlife populations. Wildlife must be able to move throughout their landscapes as it is one of the most important ecological processes that needs to be maintained for ecosystems to stay intact over time. Being able to foster an appreciation for this issue is important, as it could lead to appropriate planning and mitigation when roads are being constructed to prevent long-term degradation of wildlife populations and their habitats.

Another solution to this issue to be able to analyze the landscape’s connectivity zones; what this means is when a road is being planned for construction, comprehensive efforts must be taken to acknowledge and leave be the areas in the landscape that are deemed important travel corridors or connections for wildlife between significant habitat areas. If these steps are taken, planning for new transportation infrastructures can be more effectively and efficiently focused on how to minimize and mitigate the impacts to critical areas wildlife use. Though these solutions are still in the making, the causes of indirect effects from roads onto wildlife is an important topic that needs to be explored so we still have the wildlife we love and see all over the world.

How Roads Impact Wildlife – Habitat Fragmentation

rocarroll Wildlife June 6, 2020June 10, 2020adverse effects to wildlife, habitat fragmentation, impacts to habitat, impacts to wildlife, major transportation infrastructures, road ecology, roads, solutions for habitat fragmentation, solutions for wildlife 0 Comment

Driving down a long and windy road can sometimes feel like the best thing in the world: music cranked all the way up, windows down and the sun shining down on the world with the hills and trees lining the fields in the distance. This is a beautiful sight especially during the summertime, however, what about the the part of the land you’re driving on, now covered with tar? Most people don’t think of this when they’re driving, but roads have a huge ecological impact to the land they are implemented in; this in turn effects the environment and the wildlife living within the habitats of the land. Habitat fragmentation is a major issue when it comes to placing major transportation infrastructures (i.e., roads, highways, interstates, railroads, etc.) into the environment, but how do they exactly affect the land and the wildlife within it?

Impacts to the Land & Wildlife

Looking at the image above, what do you see? Roads cause a lot of fragmentation in the land, as you can see from the small patches of habitat in between the sections of crossing roads. A literature review I recently read about habitat fragmentation gave prime examples of how the land and wildlife are impacted by this. Habitat fragmentation is one the largest and most single pervasive threat to biodiversity across the world; it is the destruction of habitat, as well as altering and/or fragmenting large areas of habitat into smaller patches. Roads play a major role in habitat fragmentation because they cause a large dividing of the landscape into smaller patches of habitat; roads also cause interior habitat areas to turn into edge habitats, meaning areas in the interior of the land had characteristics unchanged and have now become altered and have edges that do not resemble what the habitat used to look like or be. As of 2003, 3.9 million miles of roads have caused direct habitat loss to our landscape in the U.S., and this has only increased with the number roads we currently have in the U.S. In terms of how habitat fragmentation affects wildlife populations and species, fragmentation forms the landscape to have altered habitats or areas that have developed fundamentally differently due to being shaped from natural disturbances, such as major transportation infrastructures; this is turn causes wildlife populations and species to adapt to these altered habitats over time.

These impacts of habitat fragmentation from roads have adverse effects to wildlife, and include, but are not limited to, the following: increased isolation of populations and species causing adverse effects on genetics and diversity, changes to vegetation the animals forage or feed on, changes to the quality and quantity of food, changes in temperature, changes in the flow of energy and nutrients, changes to available shelter or cover, increased edge effects that could cause species that do not normally interact to now interact, and increased opportunities for humans to exploit resources or wildlife (i.e., poaching). All of these impacts occur from having a road placed in the middle of a landscape, causing a chain reaction to occur that creates habitat fragmentation to loss of wildlife populations and species. How can this issue be solved so we don’t lose more habitat and wildlife as new roads are created?

Solutions to Habitat Fragmentation

Now that we’ve discussed the issues roads cause to wildlife, from mortality and collisions in my early blog posts to how habitat fragmentation impacts wildlife as well, what are the solutions to help reduce the effects habitat fragmentation has on the land and wildlife? The good news is not all species are necessarily affected by it; species that do not travel very far can only be truly effected if the area they’re in is disturbed, and species that have good dispersal are only affected by the amount of habitat they have access to. However, this does not mean all wildlife are safe from roads causing habitat fragmentation, or habitat fragmentation in general. I was able to find an article discussing the practical considerations of how to address the issue of habitat fragmentation. The main issue of habitat fragmentation is that it is causing wildlife populations and species to decrease in size and amount, causing wildlife to become isolated and not be able to reproduce to keep their populations growing. Barriers such as guardrails or even buildings cause limitations to wildlife movement as well; habitat fragmentation is pushed even further when a road is placed and then there are barriers placed around the road, causing the wildlife to find new corridors to their habitats. One of the main solutions to this issue is utilizing urban green-space to reduce habitat fragmentation and keep intact the connectivity between habitat patches as development continues into the future. In existing urban areas, such as landscapes having a lot of roads or other major infrastructures, green-spaces can be utilized by implementing things such as footpaths, canals and rivers to offer more corridors for wildlife to access instead of using roads to move from habitat to habitat. In urban areas that are becoming newly developed, habitat fragmentation can be counteracted by protecting the already existing patches of habitat that are high in quality and species diversity; this would in turn allow wildlife to still have access to a valuable piece of habitat and allow for the wildlife to not be limited in their movement.

Another great solution to this issue is using habitat network maps; this is a leading development by Forest Research where they develop and apply landscape ecology techniques to combat against fragmentation. Groups of people within this research organization that are concerned with fragmentation have created habitat network maps to evaluate the connectivity of existing wildlife patches and target where to implement new patches when planning urban development. These solutions to the issue of habitat fragmentation will not only help reduce the effects roads have wildlife, but also wildlife increased movement from habitat to habitat and give them more corridors to access as well. The more wildlife movement there is, the more genetic and species diversity will be seen, causing wildlife populations and species to increase rather than decrease. Roads pose serious and adverse effects to wildlife, especially when they’re habitat becomes fragmented an destroyed in the process of implementing the road. If road ecology researchers took more of this into consideration when planning to implement roads in the least destructible way possible, this would in turn benefit the landscape and wildlife in the process.

How Roads Impact Wildlife – Deer in the Headlights

rocarroll Wildlife June 3, 2020June 3, 2020deer in the headlights, impacts to wildlife, major transportation infrastructures, road ecology, roads, solutions for wildlife, what to do 0 Comment

On Friday, May 29th, I was perusing my Facebook newsfeed when I came across this post: A fawn hit by a car that was coming down an off-ramp. This always hits me hard because I work with these wildlife species that are so susceptible to cars and roadways, most of the time becoming susceptible to mortality as well. The next day, Saturday, May 30th, I was driving up Interstate 95 in between Massachusetts and New Hampshire and saw not one, not two, but THREE deer dead along the sides of the highway. One of the deer I saw hit was when I was coming through the New Hampshire tolls after the Hampton Beach exit, and was stuck incbetween the barriers built to separate the EZ-Pass and Cash Only lanes. This is very disheartening and sad to see how the wildlife around us are so easily susceptible to the major transportation infrastructures we build for our transportation needs. So, by now most of you might be asking yourselves, how do we go about solving this issue?

What to Do When You See a Deer

What would you do you saw this while driving?

What happens when most people see a deer in the middle of a roadway system (i.e., road, highway, interstate, etc.) is they don’t know what to do. Most people end up swerving their car and injuring themselves, or having the front fender of their car collide with the deer. What people should become more aware of is the steps to take if you’re put in the situation where you’re about to hit a deer on the road, such as the ones provided in this video I found and supported by State Farm Auto Insurance Company. The most important step is to always buckle-up; wearing your seatbelt will ensure that if you do end up hitting a deer, or anything that has a hard impact to your vehicle, you’ll be protected and not suffer as much of the significant injuries as you would if you weren’t wearing your seatbelt. Often times what happens when a person is encountered with a deer on the road is there is not a lot of time to react; you’re put into an almost state of shock and you need to act faster than you can think, or so it seems. Though it may seem inevitable to hit the deer, there are steps you can take to prevent this from occurring.

The Steps You Can Take

The first and probably most obvious step when you encounter a deer on the road is to slow down your vehicle; do not try and outrun a deer with your vehicle and instead slow your vehicle down so the deer has a chance to cross. This will also help other cars notice something is going on by seeing your break lights illuminated. The second thing you can do is turn on your high beams when you’re driving at night; this will ensure your illuminating as much of the road as you can to see clearly. If you do encounter a deer and your high beams are on, be sure to slow down your vehicle and also switch off your high beams to your low beam lights; bright illuminating lights can blind an animal, and switching to low beam lights will allow the animal to move safely out of the way of the vehicle. Another thing to do when driving is to scan the sides of the road and the road itself, especially if you’re driving through an area that has forested or woodsy areas; scanning will allow you to see a deer before it seems too late, and if you do see a deer, be hesitant and cautious before continuing to drive as there could be more deers following and coming to cross the road as well. Also ensure that if you do see a deer and end up needing to break or stop your vehicle that you do so safely and cautiously as this could also cause a chain reaction to the cars coming behind you on the road. Another thing to keep in mind about deer is that they’re usually seen at the times around dusk and dawn; though they could come out at any point during the day and a person should always be scanning the road, driving extra cautiously during these times and following the steps given from this post and the video will ensure you’re doing absolutely everything you can to protect deer, as well as other wildlife species, from being susceptible to a vehicle collision and adding to the number of wildlife mortalities that continue to grow.

A last and very important step to add to this is to make sure you do not swerve your vehicle; swerving your vehicle could cause damage to other drivers if your swerving into another lane of traffic, or cause you to hit something else, such as a guardrail or tree. If you do hit a deer by chance because there was absolutely no time to stop your vehicle from doing so, the video also ensures that the windshield is strong enough to withstand the impact of the deer hitting it. Though sometimes it may be inevitable to hit a deer in the road because there is only so much time between your vehicle and the deer, these are important, effective, and efficient steps that will help reduce the number of deer we see lying on the side of roads and hopefully create more awareness of what can be done to help stop wildlife being susceptible to our major transportation infrastructures.

How Roads Impact Wildlife – Considering Already Existing Roads vs. New Roads

rocarroll Wildlife May 25, 2020June 10, 2020benefitting, environmental issues, existing roads, impacts to wildlife, major transportation infrastructures, new roads, road ecology, wildlife 0 Comment

Roadways act as barriers to the movement of wildlife populations as they attempt to move from habitat to habitat, sometimes making them susceptible to things such as mortality, wildlife-vehicle collisions, fragmenting and/or destructing habitat, interrupting ecological processes, and increasing pollution and erosion. To find solutions to the issues roadways pose, one thing researchers in road ecology have found is debating whether to keep the number of road’s already existing and expand off of those, or to keep increasing the number of roads that already exist by implementing new ones. From your perspective, what would you do?

In the Real-World

Researchers studying road ecology and attempting to understand the impacts roads have on the adjacent environment or wildlife populations have used various methods to understand how mortality impacts wildlife populations through road systems, such as through increasing the number of roadways or traffic volume that already exists. Studies conducted on this found increasing traffic volume on existing roads have a lower impact on wildlife than creating new roads (Rhodes et al, 2014). When measuring levels of traffic volume, researchers assess impacts to wildlife; this can be done by accounting for risks towards wildlife populations along with various species that could be affected. Researchers investigating this were able to determine that traffic volume creates very substantial and negative consequences for wildlife, even as traffic increases (Charry & Jones, 2009).

What This Means for Wildlife & the Environment

When researchers in road ecology are developing plans to either extend an already existing road or implement a new road into the environment, there are a lot of considerations to be factored: how the road will be implemented to cause the least destruction possible, how the road once implemented will impact the surrounding environment (i.e., roads fragment the edges of an environment, causing an edge effect to occur), how the road will cause wildlife to potentially use it for crossing, etc. These factors are important, and from the studies described above attempting to understand this more, it is seen that extending already existing roads is much more beneficial to wildlife and the environment than creating new roads. Traffic volume is another consideration that goes into the plans of road ecology; the amount of traffic on a road can create very substantial and negative consequences for wildlife, such as increased wildlife mortality or wildlife-vehicle collisions on the road. However, when considering the pros and cons between the two options – either implementing a new road or extending an already existing one – the latter seems to have less consequences for the land and the wildlife surrounding the road. Road ecology should be broadened to consider how extending already existing roads rather than creating new roads would benefit wildlife and the environment as a whole, such as less instances of mortality and vehicle collisions while also increasing ecological processing in the environment overall. Road ecology could also broaden itself by implementing solutions into new road plans to create a new road that is wildlife and environmentally friendly, such as the ecopassages discussed in the previous post; this in turn would help the issues of traffic volume by giving wildlife an alternative to cross the road. Wildlife and the environment deserve to be tread upon lightly with care and compassion, as we have little left of what we started with. Roads are helpful for humanity to get us where we need to go, but in the end, is it worth sacrificing the land we have left for new roads, or leave the land for the wildlife to use and for the purposes of producing more of the natural environment and resources needed in the world today?