Abstract

Roads and traffic negatively impact many wildlife populations and ecological processes because they act as barriers to the movement of animals, reduce habitat accessibility, increase mortality, and reduce habitat quality next to the road. These limitations can affect an animal’s migration patterns, its access to resources, its
mortality rate, gene flow, and the dispersal opportunities for the young. Roads also can have several effects at the population level, such as changes in predator-prey relationships, decreases in species richness, and changes in overall community composition. For this reason, long-term monitoring projects of roads are essential to arrive at more accurate impact predictions in the future.