O método de amostragem e as características físicas da rodovia MGC-497, trecho Uberlândia-Prata, MG, influenciam as taxas de atropelamento da fauna silvestre?

Abstract

Most brazilian highways have single lanes, with the asphalt mass worn out and the absence of signs, which culminates in several problems such as traffic accidents and fauna being run over. In this sense, the general aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of the physical characteristics of the MGC-497 highway such as the width of the lane and wear of the asphalt mass, the rates of running over wild animals, as well as estimating the roadkills. Our main hypotheses are that: the roadkill rates differ between monitored sections on foot and by car; the wear of the asphalt mass and the different road widths influence the roadkill rates of wild animals. We travel the highway from February to November 2022, fortnightly, at a speed of approximately 60 km/h, totalizing 1100 km in 20 car trips. In addition, a stretch of one kilometer was covered on foot, totalling 20 km covered on foot. Correction rates were calculated to estimate the number of animals killed for each taxonomic group. We performed the Mann-Whitney U-test to evaluate whether there was a difference between roadkills on roads with and without wear, and also between narrow and wide roads. A total of 49 roadkill animals were found (run over rate 0.043 animals/km/day), with the tatu-peba, caracara and teiú being the most common. We also recorded raposa-do-campo and tamanduá-bandeira, animals that are threatened of extinction. Two of our main hypotheses were refuted, wear and different widths of the road did not influence the roadkill rates of wild animals. The roadkill rates were higher in the sections monitored on foot, where detection was two-fold higher for mammals and 21-fold higher for Birds. Amphibians were only found in foot monitoring, while reptiles were found only in car monitoring. We estimate that at least 889 vertebrates die annually when run over in the Uberlândia-Prata stretch, MG. We suggest awareness campaigns for users of the road and better singnaling to avoid roadkills in the MGC-497.