{"id":59,"date":"2015-06-11T19:32:05","date_gmt":"2015-06-11T19:32:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carleton.ca\/fahriglab\/?p=59"},"modified":"2015-06-11T19:41:09","modified_gmt":"2015-06-11T19:41:09","slug":"from-crops-to-roadkill-lenore-fahrig-aims-to-reduce-human-impact-on-biodiversity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fahriglab\/2015\/from-crops-to-roadkill-lenore-fahrig-aims-to-reduce-human-impact-on-biodiversity\/","title":{"rendered":"From crops to roadkill: Lenore Fahrig aims to reduce human impact on biodiversity"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kristy Strauss<\/p>\n

When Lenore Fahrig would go visit her parents in Merrickville, Ontario \u2013 about an hour drive outside Ottawa \u2013 she noticed something strange.<\/p>\n

As she drove the usual route along the Rideau River on the bustling Old Highway 16, and then on the quiet County Road 2, she noticed there seemed to be more dead frogs and toads on the less-traveled road.\"trillium2s\"<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot more traffic on 16, so you might expect there to be more dead frogs and toads there,\u201d explains Dr. Fahrig, a professor in 杏吧原创\u2019s Department of Biology. \u201cThis got me wondering whether there are fewer dead frogs and toads on 16 because, after many years of road-kill, the population sizes of frogs and toads along Highway 16 have been reduced. I thought maybe there just aren\u2019t nearly as many frogs and toads there anymore, because so many of them have been killed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fahrig set out to test her hypothesis, and published a paper about it in 1995 entitled Effect of Road Traffic on Amphibian Density<\/em>. The paper grabbed the attention of a couple students, who wanted to study the subject as part of their graduate work.<\/p>\n

This marked the beginning of two decades of Fahrig\u2019s in-depth research program dedicated to the effects of roads on wildlife \u2013 from mammals of all sizes to frogs and toads, turtles, and even insects.<\/p>\n

In her Geomatics and Landscape Ecology Laboratory<\/a> at 杏吧原创, she has also expanded her research and made surprising conclusions about the size of crop land, and its effect on biodiversity.<\/p>\n

Roadways and their impacts on animals<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

As part of her research, Fahrig has looked at how fencing lowers amphibians and reptiles\u2019 mortality rate rather than culverts \u2013 which is a tunnel that is constructed under a road.<\/p>\n

In her paper entitled Culverts alone do not reduce road mortality in anurans, <\/em>Fahrig and her colleagues found that culverts don\u2019t work well for a couple of reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main one is that frogs don\u2019t realize the culverts are there. If a frog encounters a road, it apparently doesn\u2019t think to itself, \u2018Hey, I wonder if there\u2019s a culvert nearby that I could use to cross the road safely,\u2019\u201d she explains. \u201cIt just tries to cross over the road in the spot where it encounters it, and often gets killed there. The second reason is that culverts are a lot different from the natural environment, so frogs are probably not much inclined to go into them. They don\u2019t \u2018know\u2019 that the culvert leads to the other side of the road.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fahrig says that frogs have to be led to a culvert by fencing off the road, so their only option is to cross the road through the culvert. She adds that frogs can also be kept off the road by raising the road about one metre, and putting concrete on the roadbed\u2019s sides.<\/p>\n

Fahrig says that this paper is relevant to Canada in particular, where it snows more often.<\/p>\n

\"road\u201cSnow removal and the snow itself can do a lot of damage to fencing,\u201d she says. \u201cThis means that fencing has to be constantly maintained and even rebuilt, which is a big investment. So, any way to reduce frog mortality on roads, without installing fences, would be very useful in Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keeping this in mind, Fahrig would like to look at the idea of whether extended stream crossings could be a partial solution for frogs.<\/p>\n

These extended stream crossings would replace culverts under roads, explains Fahrig, and animals could follow those crossings instead of the road \u2013 and eliminate the need for fencing.<\/p>\n

In a study entitled Influence of traffic mortality on forest bird abundance<\/em>, she and her colleagues also looked at how road kill has an effect on bird populations near high-traffic roads.<\/p>\n

Since studies have shown that the number of birds are reduced within 250 metres of high-traffic roads, researchers in the past have concluded that these reduced numbers are because of traffic noise.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey argue that, because birds communicate with each other by singing, traffic noise interrupts their ability to communicate,\u201d says Fahrig. \u201cIf birds can\u2019t hear each other, they can\u2019t attract mates, maintain territories, or communicate with their young. All of this might cause problems for reproduction and survival. At least, that is the argument.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, her study found that bird populations are reduced near high-traffic roads because of more than traffic noise \u2013 it\u2019s also road kill that plays a major role.<\/p>\n

The study showed that bird numbers are lower near high-traffic roads because many of them are killed on the roads.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the design of the study was quite ingenious,\u201d says Fahrig. \u201cIt took advantage of the fact that forest birds cross small gaps in forest. That means that, if road kill has a big effect on birds, we should see that effect along roads that cut a path through the forest, and not so much along roads where there is forest on one side and an open field on the other side. This is exactly what we found in this study.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"rabbits\"She adds that this new finding is important because now researchers can look at how the road, and traffic, make an impact \u2013 and can find ways to reduce that impact.<\/p>\n

While people might be used to seeing road kill, Fahrig says her research digs deep into its effect on wildlife populations.<\/p>\n

Additionally, she says the importance of fencing may be surprising to some.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur research shows that the most important thing is not that the animal gets across the road, but that it doesn\u2019t get killed on the road,\u201d she says. \u201cIn other words, it would usually be better to fence the whole road and keep the animals off it so they don\u2019t get killed, than to leave it unfenced so that a few animals can get across (but others are killed).\u201d<\/p>\n

Crop fields and biodiversity <\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the years, Fahrig\u2019s lab has also expanded to study the size of crop land, and its effect on biodiversity.<\/p>\n

\"aerialIn the paper entitled Farmlands with smaller crop fields have higher within-field biodiversity, <\/em>Fahrig and her colleagues found that a large number of small crop fields in farmland had higher biodiversity. Farmland that had only a couple of very large crop fields had less biodiversity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is really important because the trend, worldwide, is to enlarge crop fields,\u201d she says. \u201cThis is moving in the wrong direction for biodiversity. For a given amount of cropped area, there is less damage to biodiversity if we divide the cropped area into small crop fields than if we have a few large crop fields.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fahrig thinks that farmlands with small crop fields are better for biodiversity because they have many field edges \u2013 which are important for preserving biodiversity, because it offers a good habitat between fields that are maintained by farmers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe field edges represent small \u2018refuges\u2019 where wildlife can escape to when conditions in the field are not good,\u201d she says. \u201cAccess to these refuges is much higher in farmlands where there are lots of small fields than in farmlands where there are only one or two big fields.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fahrig adds that the most surprising part of her research is that she and her colleagues consistently found that farmland with small crop fields are better for biodiversity in birds, plants, butterflies, bees, beetles, flies and spiders.<\/p>\n

She also thinks people might be most surprised by the fact that biodiversity can be improved without taking farmland out of food production.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur research shows that you can maintain the same area of productive farmland, but if you divide it into smaller fields, the biodiversity there will be higher,\u201d Fahrig says.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Loss of biodiversity has become a major global issue, she says, adding that many see the current crisis as a mass extinction \u2013 very much like mass extinctions millions of years ago.<\/p>\n

However, this time around, it is caused by humans.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest reason for the current biodiversity crisis is conversion of natural lands to farmlands,\u201d Fahrig says. \u201cAnother important reason is the impact of roads and traffic on wildlife, and this impact is increasing as the road network expands and traffic volumes climb.\u201d<\/p>\n

She adds that her lab\u2019s research is vital to understanding why the number of species is declining, so that this issue can be solved.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope people will translate the results into action to limit biodiversity losses,\u201d Fahrig says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kristy Strauss When Lenore Fahrig would go visit her parents in Merrickville, Ontario \u2013 about an hour drive outside Ottawa \u2013 she noticed something strange. As she drove the usual route along the Rideau River on the bustling Old Highway 16, and then on the quiet County Road 2, she noticed there seemed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nFrom crops to roadkill: Lenore Fahrig aims to reduce human impact 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