RT Journal Article
T1 Environmental factors influencing road use in a nocturnal insectivorous bird
A1 Felipe, M. de
A1 Sáez Gómez, Pedro
A1 Camacho, C.
AB Many animals avoid roads due to traffic disturbance, but there are also some species that use roads in their everyday life and evenobtain resources from them. Understanding the factors that influence the intensity of road use by these species can helpunderstand temporal patterns of road mortality and thereby maximise the cost-effectiveness of mitigation measures. Here, weuse road transect counts conducted once a week for 9 consecutive years (2009–2017) to investigate environmental factorsinfluencing road use in the red-necked nightjar (Caprimulgus ruficollis), a nocturnal insectivorous bird that frequents roads toforage and thermoregulate. We found that the intensity of road use by nightjars was affected by ambient temperature, amount ofmoonlight and wind conditions—all factors known to influence their foraging efficiency and thermoregulatory requirements.Specifically, the highest numbers of nightjars on roads occurred during no-wind conditions and on either dark-cold or brightwarm nights, suggesting that they preferentially use roads for thermoregulation under unfavourable weather conditions or tomaximise food intake during periods of increased insect abundance (i.e. warm nights) and improved conditions for visual preydetection (i.e. full moon). Our results illustrate the role of environmental conditions as drivers of rapid changes in the use of roadsby animals. Furthermore, this work suggests that analogous studies can be used to inform mitigation measure
PB Springer
SN 1612-4642
SN 1439-0574 (electrónico)
YR 2019
FD 2019
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10272/20908
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10272/20908
LA eng
NO Felipe, M. de, Sáez-Gómez, P., & Camacho, C. (2019). Environmental factors influencing road use in a nocturnal insectivorous bird. In European Journal of Wildlife Research (Vol. 65, Issue 3). Springer Science and Business Media LLC. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-019-1267-5
NO CC was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the fellowship SVP–2013–067686
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 30 may 2026