摘要：Roads and traffic are prominent components of most landscapes throughout the world, andtheir negative effects on the natural environment can extend for hundreds or thousands of meters beyondthe road. These effects include mortality of wildlife due to collisions with vehicles, pollution of soil andair, modification of wildlife behavior in response to noise, creation of barriers to wildlife movement, andestablishment of dispersal conduits for some plant and animal species. In southeast Australia, much of theremaining habitat for the squirrel glider, Petaurus norfolcensis, is located in narrow strips of Eucalyptus woodland that is adjacent to roads and streams, as well as in small patches of woodland vegetation that isfarther from roads. We evaluated the effect of traffic volume on squirrel gliders by estimating apparentannual survival rates of adults along the Hume Freeway and nearby low-traffic-volume roads. We surveyedpopulations of squirrel gliders by trapping them over 2.5 years, and combined these data with priorinformation on apparent survival rates in populations located away from freeways to model the ratio ofapparent annual survival rates in both site types. The apparent annual survival rate of adult squirrel glidersliving along the Hume Freeway was estimated to be approximately 60% lower than for squirrel glidersliving near local roads. The cause of the reduced apparent survival rate may be due to higher rates ofmortality and/or higher emigration rates adjacent to the Hume Freeway compared with populations nearsmaller country roads. Management options for population persistence will be influenced by which of thesefactors is the primary cause of a reduced apparent survival rate
关键词：Australia; emigration; mortality; population persistence; road ecology; squirrel glider;surviva
