Road Ecology Active
Roads and their associated infrastructure can cause substantial and pervasive effects on adjacent ecosystems but are necessary for the movement and redistribution of goods, people, wealth, and natural resources in modern societies. The Fort Collins Science Center has initiated research looking at how roads and traffic may be impacting sagebrush ecosystems and the wildlife inhabiting them. This work is centered around 1) mapping roads and modeling traffic across the greater sagebrush biome, and 2) assessing how roads and traffic may be affecting wildlife populations in this imperiled ecoregion.
Worldwide Increases in Roads and Road Traffic
In many parts of the world such as Latin America, China, and India, road networks are growing at unprecedented rates in remote areas thereby reducing the global footprint of roadless areas. In developed countries, most new roads are built to facilitate urban growth or provide access to natural resources for energy extraction. However, in nearly all parts of the globe, the amount of traffic on roads is increasing dramatically. For example, vehicular traffic on roads in the United States has increased relative to the construction of new roads, with vehicular travel mileage having increased by 29% between 1990 and 2000 while the total miles of roads having increased by only 2%.
Roads Present a Challenge for Resource Managers
Roads and their associated vehicular traffic have been linked to habitat degradation and functional habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, as well as reduced abundance, and direct mortality of people and wildlife. In response, land and wildlife managers are tasked with managing these impacts while also maintaining the integrity of transportation networks that our society relies on. This often requires balancing biological preservation with the ever-changing demands of anthropogenic land use. As a tool to aid this process, managers often use maps of surface disturbance to identify areas that may be more impacted than others, but often these maps ignore how long surface disturbances have been present or the degree of impact that the disturbance may have on nearby ecosystems.
Majority of Road Ecology Studies are Limited to Small Study Areas
The size of the area over which effects from roads extend into adjacent ecosystems (road-effect zone) may be influenced by traffic volume, such that roads with greater traffic volumes may impact larger areas than roads with less traffic. However, the vast majority of studies exploring potential effects of roads and their associated traffic on adjacent ecosystems have used only a few study sites where traffic volume and other road characteristics can be measured locally. Local measurements, however, preclude landscape analyses across large regions because traffic volumes obtained from a few roads are unlikely to adequately represent the patterns of traffic volume across large regions, especially when road types differ (for example, highways, arterial roads, or gravel access roads). Obtaining traffic volume measurements across all roads in a large road network could be done with automated traffic recorders but is prohibitively expensive due to the associated setup and maintenance costs.
Our Landscape-scale Road Ecology Projects
We have developed projects to overcome some of the limitations of existing road ecology studies by 1) mapping roads and modeling traffic across the greater sagebrush biome, and 2) assessing how roads and traffic may be affecting greater sage-grouse populations in Wyoming.
Mapping roads and modeling traffic across the greater sagebrush biome
Assessing how roads and traffic may be affecting greater sage-grouse populations in Wyoming
Roads and their associated infrastructure can cause substantial and pervasive effects on adjacent ecosystems but are necessary for the movement and redistribution of goods, people, wealth, and natural resources in modern societies. The Fort Collins Science Center has initiated research looking at how roads and traffic may be impacting sagebrush ecosystems and the wildlife inhabiting them. This work is centered around 1) mapping roads and modeling traffic across the greater sagebrush biome, and 2) assessing how roads and traffic may be affecting wildlife populations in this imperiled ecoregion.
Worldwide Increases in Roads and Road Traffic
In many parts of the world such as Latin America, China, and India, road networks are growing at unprecedented rates in remote areas thereby reducing the global footprint of roadless areas. In developed countries, most new roads are built to facilitate urban growth or provide access to natural resources for energy extraction. However, in nearly all parts of the globe, the amount of traffic on roads is increasing dramatically. For example, vehicular traffic on roads in the United States has increased relative to the construction of new roads, with vehicular travel mileage having increased by 29% between 1990 and 2000 while the total miles of roads having increased by only 2%.
Roads Present a Challenge for Resource Managers
Roads and their associated vehicular traffic have been linked to habitat degradation and functional habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, as well as reduced abundance, and direct mortality of people and wildlife. In response, land and wildlife managers are tasked with managing these impacts while also maintaining the integrity of transportation networks that our society relies on. This often requires balancing biological preservation with the ever-changing demands of anthropogenic land use. As a tool to aid this process, managers often use maps of surface disturbance to identify areas that may be more impacted than others, but often these maps ignore how long surface disturbances have been present or the degree of impact that the disturbance may have on nearby ecosystems.
Majority of Road Ecology Studies are Limited to Small Study Areas
The size of the area over which effects from roads extend into adjacent ecosystems (road-effect zone) may be influenced by traffic volume, such that roads with greater traffic volumes may impact larger areas than roads with less traffic. However, the vast majority of studies exploring potential effects of roads and their associated traffic on adjacent ecosystems have used only a few study sites where traffic volume and other road characteristics can be measured locally. Local measurements, however, preclude landscape analyses across large regions because traffic volumes obtained from a few roads are unlikely to adequately represent the patterns of traffic volume across large regions, especially when road types differ (for example, highways, arterial roads, or gravel access roads). Obtaining traffic volume measurements across all roads in a large road network could be done with automated traffic recorders but is prohibitively expensive due to the associated setup and maintenance costs.
Our Landscape-scale Road Ecology Projects
We have developed projects to overcome some of the limitations of existing road ecology studies by 1) mapping roads and modeling traffic across the greater sagebrush biome, and 2) assessing how roads and traffic may be affecting greater sage-grouse populations in Wyoming.