Wildlife roadkill occurrence data from plantations and tropical rainforest in the Anamalai Hills, Western Ghats, India

Study Extent

Eleven road transects of 3.7–12.9 km length (total length = 80.2 km, average = 7.2 km) were surveyed during monsoon and summer. Overall, these transects were walked 117 times (9–13 repeats each) from June to December 2011 (monsoon) and 87 times (7–8 repeats each) from March to June 2012 (summer). Transects walked in June 2012 prior to the onset of monsoon were pooled with summer for analysis. The total length surveyed during the study period was 1473.4 km (monsoon = 838.5 km, summer = 634.9 km).

Sampling

Surveys were conducted on foot between 0600 h and 0800 h. Of the eleven transects surveyed, seven road transects passed through ATR and the remaining four passed through rainforest fragments, tea, coffee and eucalyptus plantations on the Valparai plateau. For roadkills found, the species, the number of individuals and the roadside habitat were noted, and their locations were recorded using a hand-held Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx device. To avoid duplicate counts on subsequent visits, roadkills were removed from the road (and placed outside the road verge) after noting the details. Supplementary observations and roadkill incidents in the study area were also recorded opportunistically. At the location of each roadkill, the adjoining habitat on either side of the road was noted. Habitats were broadly classified as forest and monoculture plantations (tea, coffee, eucalyptus). As two different habitats sometimes occurred on either side of the road at habitat edges, the following combinations of mixed habitats were also categorized: forest-tea, forest-coffee and eucalyptus-tea.

Quality Control

Roadkill specimens were not collected and only photographs were taken to aid in identification. Roadkills were identified to species level in case of mammals and birds. Amphibian and reptile roadkills were often in a badly damaged state, especially during monsoon, making it difficult to identify them even up to genus level. Such records were categorized up to the group level or left unidentified. Invertebrates were recorded up to phylum level or sub-phylum level.

Method steps

1. The dataset with road tracks were uploaded to Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7049090). CSV files for upload to GBIF were prepared using R code to match columns to Darwin Core terms.

Animals, mainly terrestrial vertebrates and invertebrates recorded as roadkill

1. Animalia
   rank: kingdom

Location/Study Area: Valparai Plateau, Tamil Nadu, India; Anamalai Tiger Reserve, Tamil Nadu, India Road routes: 11 road routes as described in Jeganathan et al. (2018); geographical track (kml) files of roads available here: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7049090