Atropelamento de vertebrados silvestres em um trecho da Rodovia BR-163 no Oeste do Pará, Amazônia, Brasil.

Abstract

The trampling of wild fauna is a threat to biodiversity. In the Amazon, there has been an increase in the road network in recent decades, intensifying the flow of vehicles and probably contributing to an increase in the hit and run (TA) rates of fauna. In this scenario, we aim to characterize the wild fauna run over in a stretch of 100 kilometers of the BR-163 highway, in the municipality of Belterra/PA, determining which groups are most affected and whether there are spatial (hotspots) and temporal aggregations, in relation to climatic variations of precipitation and temperature (hotmoments), of being run over. For this, we carry out biweekly monitoring using a motorized vehicle at a maximum speed of 40 km/h, always starting at 07:00 h. We recorded a total of 351 individuals and an average run-over rate of 0.14 ind./km/day. The class with the most hit-and-run records was that of amphibians (TA = 0.066 ind./km/day), followed by mammals (TA = 0.026 ind./km/day), reptiles (TA = 0.025 ind./km/day) and birds (TA = 0.024 ind./km/day). We identified several possible common hotspots for all classes, with three locations being hotspots for more than one class. The trampling of amphibians and reptiles showed a relationship with the precipitation of the seven days preceding each monitoring, the average temperature of the seven days preceding each monitoring and with the average temperature of the day preceding each monitoring. Information on places and periods with the highest incidence of being run over can assist in the development of actions by the competent management bodies, such as the installation of fauna crossing structures, aiming at reducing the impacts on wild vertebrates in the study section. The results may also support the carrying out of future studies locally to expand information on fauna mortality due to pedestrians being run over.