What is it about?
Roadkill and landscape composition affect snakes at different spatial scales, depending on the functional trait value of the species, which is reflected in the functional diversity indices at the assemblage level.
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Why is it important?
The study found that the effect of landscape composition on functional diversity was higher than roadkill effects for snake assemblages in the Orinoco region of Colombia. The index for functional redundancy is higher among species that fall victim to roadkill, indicating that roads remove species fulfilling similar roles in the ecosystem. Likewise, the adjacent vegetation displays limited functional redundancy values, underscoring the critical role that each surviving species plays in the ecosystem processes within snake communities.
Perspectives
In savanna ecosystems, the presence of native forests within a 2000-meter radius surrounding roads supports the preservation of snake communities. Nonetheless, within a 250-meter radius, the risk of snake roadkill escalates when roads limit native forests.
PhD Nicolas Urbina-Cardona
Pontificia Universidad Javeriana
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Functional diversity of snakes is explained by the landscape composition at multiple areas of influence, Ecology and Evolution, July 2023, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/ece3.10352.
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