Road verges are corridors and roads barriers for the movement of flower-visiting insects
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Date
2021-11-25
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
ECOGRAPHY
Abstract
Roads and road verges can potentially have opposite impacts on organisms that move
through the landscape. While road verges can be habitat for a large number of species,
and have been proposed to act as dispersal corridors, roads can act as barriers to movement.
This duality of roads and road verges has however rarely been assessed simultaneously,
and it is unknown to what degree it depends on the amount of traffic on the
road and on the habitat quality of the road verge. We used fluorescent powdered dye
to track movements of flower-visiting insects along roads with varying traffic intensity,
and in verges with contrasting habitat quality (flowering plant species richness and
flower density). Insect movements along road verges were more frequent than movements
into the adjacent habitats, indicating that verges act as corridors. The frequency
of movements that required crossing the road was lower compared to the frequency
of movements that did not, suggesting that roads are barriers. The movement patterns
were independent of traffic intensity, but the barrier effect was stronger when the road
verge had a higher density of flower resources. The effect of roads as a barrier and of
the road verges as corridors were independent of each other. Our results suggest that
flower-visiting insects tend to remain longer in road verges with high density of flowers
and we therefore suggest that managing road verge habitats for an increased plant
diversity will mitigate the known negative impacts of roads on insect populations.
Description
Publikation hämtad från SND
Keywords
bees, butterflies, dispersal, habitats, hoverflies, landscape, linear infrastructure connectivity
Citation
Juliana Dániel-Ferreira, Åsa Berggren, Jörgen Wissman, Erik Öckinger. Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet, Institutionen för ekologi (2021). Data till: Vägrenar fungerar som korridorer och vägar som barriärer för rörelser av blombesökande insekter. Svensk nationell datatjänst. Version 1. https://doi.org/10.5878/h758-5n57