Assessment of wildlife road kills along urbanization gradient in Morogoro Municipality, Tanzania
| dc.contributor.author | Mariki, Heavenlight Livingstone | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2024-11-05T11:06:52Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2024-11-05T11:06:52Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2023-05 | |
| dc.description | MSc Dissertation | |
| dc.description.abstract | Roads can adversely affect wildlife in two main ways: indirectly, by destroying or dividing their habitats, and directly, by influencing animal collisions with vehicles. There is insufficient of studies regarding wildlife road killing in urban areas, particularly in Morogoro municipal. In order to assess the extent and context of road kill among urban wildlife. The study examined (i) how wildlife road kill composition changes across the urban zones and how road features impact the occurrence of road kills within the municipality. (ii) Assessing conservation awareness among drivers on wild animal kills incidences. Systematic counts of all road kills was conducted along five roads transects cutting across the urbanization gradient in the study area from November to May 2024. Further, questionnaires were administered to drivers within Morogoro municipal to understand the experiences and knowledge on wild animals. A descriptive analysis was employed to show kill abundance across the urbanization zones. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to compare roadkills between urban zones and within animal taxa respectively. The results showed that, insects had the highest kill abundance and birds had the lowest. There was no significance difference in the overall abundance of road kills between the urban zones. Nevertheless, there was a notable variation in taxa abundance across the urban zones. Speed and animal taxa had a significant positive influence on the number of road kills. Binomial GLM modeling was employed descriptive analysis supported with to understand the factors the mostly influence the perceptions and conservation awareness on the wildlife and animal road kills in urban landscapes. The results revealed that animal collisions occurring outside urban areas (55%) were the most prevalent form of accidents, with mammals being the primary affected group (35.7%). Further, outside of urban areas, the statistical model revealed that the likelihood of animal collision on he road increased as driving hours decreased, whereas inside urban areas, the likelihood of animal collisions increased as driving hours increased. Overall, this study emphasizes the substantial impact of road kills on diverse taxa(classes) and identifies key contributors to these incidents. Three major environmental concerns emerge: the threat posed to urban ecosystem functioning by the significant number of animals killed on roads, including crucial pollinators and seed dispersers like fruit bats and insects; the negative impact of designated road over-speeding on wildlife and the lack of conservation status data for a large proportion of road kills, particularly among insects, underscoring the need for increased efforts in investigating invertebrates(insects) biodiversity in urban landscapes. | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://www.suaire.sua.ac.tz/handle/123456789/6427 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | Sokoine University of Agriculture | |
| dc.subject | Animal-vehicle collision | |
| dc.subject | environmental justice | |
| dc.subject | road attributes | |
| dc.subject | road kill | |
| dc.subject | urban ecosystem | |
| dc.subject | wildlife. | |
| dc.title | Assessment of wildlife road kills along urbanization gradient in Morogoro Municipality, Tanzania | |
| dc.type | Thesis |