Roadless and Low-Traffic Areas as Conservation Targets in Europe

With increasing road encroachment, habitat fragmentation by transport infrastructures has been a serious threat for European biodiversity. Areas with no roads or little traffic (“roadless and low-traffic areas”) represent relatively undisturbed natural habitats and functioning ecosystems. They provide many benefits for biodiversity and human societies (e.g., landscape connectivity, barrier against pests and invasions, ecosystem services). Roadless and low-traffic areas, with a lower level of anthropogenic disturbances, are of special relevance in Europe because of their rarity and, in the context of climate change, because of their contribution to higher resilience and buffering capacity within landscape ecosystems. An analysis of European legal instruments illustrates that, although most laws aimed at protecting targets which are inherent to fragmentation, like connectivity, ecosystem processes or integrity, roadless areas are widely neglected as a legal target. A case study in Germany underlines this finding. Although the Natura 2000 network covers a significant proportion of the country (16%), Natura 2000 sites are highly fragmented and most low-traffic areas (75%) lie unprotected outside this network. This proportion is even higher for the old Federal States (western Germany), where only 20% of the low-traffic areas are protected. We propose that the few remaining roadless and low-traffic areas in Europe should be an important focus of conservation efforts; they should be urgently inventoried, included more explicitly in the law and accounted for in transport and urban planning. Considering them as complementary conservation targets would represent a concrete step towards the strengthening and adaptation of the Natura 2000 network to climate change

Following The Trail: Factors Underlying the Sudden Expansion of the Egyptian Mongoose (<i>Herpestes ichneumon</i>) in Portugal

<div><p>Species range-limits are influenced by a combination of several factors. In our study we aimed to unveil the drivers underlying the expansion of the Egyptian mongoose in Portugal, a carnivore that was confined to southern Portugal and largely increased its range during the last three decades. We evaluated the expansion of the species in three periods (1980-1990, 1990-2000 and 2000-2010), by projecting the presence/absence data of the species in each temporal range and proposed four hypotheses to explain this sudden expansion associated to changes in the barrier effects of human infrastructure and topographic features, and in the availability of suitable areas due to climate change or land use. An exploratory analysis was made using Spearman rank correlation, followed by a hierarchical partitioning analysis to select uncorrelated potential explanatory variables associated with the different hypotheses. We then ran Generalized Linear Models (GLM) for every period for each hypothesis and for every combination of hypotheses. Our main findings suggest that dynamic transitions of land-use coupled with temperature and rainfall variations over the decades are the main drivers promoting the mongoose expansion. The geographic barriers and the human infrastructures functioned as barriers for mongoose expansion and have shaped its distribution. The expansion of the Egyptian mongoose across the Portuguese territory was due to a variety of factors. Our results suggest a rapid shift in species range in response to land-use and climate changes, underlining the close link between species ranges and a changing environment.</p></div