Ecologia de ferrovias: análises de lacunas e padrões espaciais de impactos na vida silvestre

Abstract

The ecology of railways is an emerging field, which still has scarce and scattered information about the effects of these infrastructures on biodiversity. The main environmental impacts described from railway networks are: running over fauna, the barrier effect and its consequent reduction in the size and quality of the habitat. This work was organized in two chapters: (1) a bibliographical review of the works published with the subject Ecology of Railroads (in English: “Railway Ecology” and “Railway wildlife”), in an attempt to identify and fill the knowledge gaps. In this analysis, we found that tropical areas have been neglected in studies, that collisions are one of the most studied impacts, and large mammals have greater attention in this area, and mitigation measures are still little studied; (2) a case study on the North-South Railroad with the objective of determining the main causes of roadkill in armadillos (Euphractus sexcinctus). In this context, it was identified that the increase in the number of train pairs, consequently, increases the number of pedestrians being run over and that the seasonality factor and the degree of anthropization of the habitat do not seem to influence fatalities. Two locations with potential for the installation of mitigation measures to minimize this impact were also identified. The review carried out in this work is important in the dissemination of information, aiming to fill gaps in the field of Railway Ecology and its effects on biodiversity. Thus, due to the large existing gap on animals run over on Brazilian railways, this work assumes its importance by establishing the main factors that are directly related to tatupeba being run over on railways, identifying important analyzes in the process, such as the definition of more and effective mitigating measures for this heavily impacted species. In this way, the results presented are relevant to the field of railroad ecology, since it is a developing area, mainly in South America. It should be noted that this work meets the Aichi goals and the Sustainable Development Goal by promoting measures to stop the loss of biodiversity, respecting its urgent nature.