Authors: Medrano-Vizcaino, Pablo; Grilo, Clara;Pinto, Fernando;Carvalho, William;Melinski, Ramiro;Schultz, Eduardo;Gonzalez-Suárez, Manuela;

Roads are a major threat for wildlife degrading habitat and causing direct mortality via wildlife-vehicle collisions. In Latin America, the conjunction of high biodiversity and a rapidly expanding road network is reason for concern.
We compiled data from 86 roadkill surveys from Latin America that provided 1682 roadkill rate estimates for 346 bird and 159 mammalian species. We applied Random Forest models to predict roadkill rates considering species’ traits, habitat preferences, and the geographic coordinates of each study. Fitted models were used to predict spatial risks for roadkilled species across their areas of habitat.
We found higher mortality in larger birds and medium-sized mammals. Birds and mammals with shorter life expectancies, wider habitat breadths, and early maturity ages that occur in anthropized areas showed higher mortality. Diet was the most important trait predictor for mammals, with higher rates among scavengers and those with diets based on invertebrates. Our spatial predictions revealed higher roadkill rates across Central America, northern Andean regions, the Atlantic Forest of Brazil and Argentina, and southern Chile.
This first comprehensive assessment for Latin America offers a synthesis of drivers of roadkill risk for birds and mammals and identifies species and areas where existing roads can impact wildlife.