How do King Cobras move across a major highway? Unintentional wildlife crossing structures may facilitate movement
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In: Ecology and Evolution, Vol. 12, No. 3, e8691, 17.03.2022.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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T1 - How do King Cobras move across a major highway? Unintentional wildlife crossing structures may facilitate movement
AU - Jones, Max Dolton
AU - Marshall, Benjamin Michael
AU - Smith, Samantha Nicole
AU - Crane, Matt
AU - Silva, Inês
AU - Artchawakom, Taksin
AU - Suwanwaree, Pongthep
AU - Waengsothorn, Surachit
AU - Wüster, Wolfgang
AU - Goode, Matt
AU - Strine, Colin Thomas
N1 - © 2022 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
PY - 2022/3/17
Y1 - 2022/3/17
N2 - Global road networks continue to expand, and the wildlife responses to these landscape-level changes need to be understood to advise long-term management decisions. Roads have high mortality risk to snakes because snakes typically move slowly and can be intentionally targeted by drivers.We investigated how radio-tracked King Cobras ( Ophiophagus hannah) traverse a major highway in northeast Thailand, and if reproductive cycles were associated with road hazards.We surveyed a 15.3 km stretch of Highway 304 to determine if there were any locations where snakes could safely move across the road (e.g., culverts and bridges). We used recurse analyses to detect possible road-crossing events, and used dynamic Brownian Bridge Movement Models (dBBMMs) to show movement pathways association with possible unintentional crossing structures. We further used Integrated Step Selection Functions (ISSF) to assess seasonal differences in avoidance of major roads for adult King Cobras in relation to reproductive state.We discovered 32 unintentional wildlife crossing locations capable of facilitating King Cobra movement across the highway. While our dBBMMs broadly revealed underpasses as possible crossing points, they failed to identify specific underpasses used by telemetered individuals; however, the tracking locations pre- and post-crossing and photographs provided strong evidence of underpass use. Our ISSF suggested a lower avoidance of roads during the breeding season, although the results were inconclusive. With the high volume of traffic, large size of King Cobras, and a 98.8% success rate of crossing the road in our study (nine individuals: 84 crossing attempts with one fatality), we strongly suspect that individuals are using the unintentional crossing structures to safely traverse the road.Further research is needed to determine the extent of wildlife underpass use at our study site. We propose that more consistent integration of drainage culverts and bridges could help mitigate the impacts of roads on some terrestrial wildlife.
AB - Global road networks continue to expand, and the wildlife responses to these landscape-level changes need to be understood to advise long-term management decisions. Roads have high mortality risk to snakes because snakes typically move slowly and can be intentionally targeted by drivers.We investigated how radio-tracked King Cobras ( Ophiophagus hannah) traverse a major highway in northeast Thailand, and if reproductive cycles were associated with road hazards.We surveyed a 15.3 km stretch of Highway 304 to determine if there were any locations where snakes could safely move across the road (e.g., culverts and bridges). We used recurse analyses to detect possible road-crossing events, and used dynamic Brownian Bridge Movement Models (dBBMMs) to show movement pathways association with possible unintentional crossing structures. We further used Integrated Step Selection Functions (ISSF) to assess seasonal differences in avoidance of major roads for adult King Cobras in relation to reproductive state.We discovered 32 unintentional wildlife crossing locations capable of facilitating King Cobra movement across the highway. While our dBBMMs broadly revealed underpasses as possible crossing points, they failed to identify specific underpasses used by telemetered individuals; however, the tracking locations pre- and post-crossing and photographs provided strong evidence of underpass use. Our ISSF suggested a lower avoidance of roads during the breeding season, although the results were inconclusive. With the high volume of traffic, large size of King Cobras, and a 98.8% success rate of crossing the road in our study (nine individuals: 84 crossing attempts with one fatality), we strongly suspect that individuals are using the unintentional crossing structures to safely traverse the road.Further research is needed to determine the extent of wildlife underpass use at our study site. We propose that more consistent integration of drainage culverts and bridges could help mitigate the impacts of roads on some terrestrial wildlife.
KW - bridge
KW - drainage culvert
KW - mortality
KW - Ophiophagus hannah
KW - road crossing
KW - space use
U2 - 10.1002/ece3.8691
DO - 10.1002/ece3.8691
M3 - Article
C2 - 35342558
VL - 12
JO - Ecology and Evolution
JF - Ecology and Evolution
SN - 2045-7758
IS - 3
M1 - e8691
ER -