2009/01/01 by Rodney van der Ree, Dean Heinze, Michael A. McCarthy +1 · 1 citation
Environmental Science · #Biology #Ecology #Endangered species #Environmental planning #Environmental resource management #Environmental science #Fishery #Geography #Habitat #Population #Population viability analysis #Rangeland and Wildlife Management #Wildlife #Wildlife Ecology and Conservation #Wildlife conservation #Wildlife corridor #Wildlife-Road Interactions and Conservation
paper · pdf · doi:10.5751/es-02957-140207
openalex publication_date 2009/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
Roads and traffic are pervasive components of landscapes throughout the world: they cause wildlife mortality, disrupt animal movements, and increase the risk of extinction. Expensive engineering solutions, such as overpasses and tunnels, are increasingly being adopted to mitigate these effects. Although some species readily use such structures, their success in preventing population extinction remains unknown. Here, we use population viability modeling to assess the effectiveness of tunnels for the endangered Mountain Pygmy-possum (Burramys parvus) in Australia. The underpasses reduced, but did not completely remove, the negative effects of a road. The expected minimum population size of a "reconnected" population remained 15% lower than that of a comparable "undivided" population. We propose that the extent to which the risk of extinction decreases should be adopted as a measure of effectiveness of mitigation measures and that the use of population modeling become routine in these evaluations.