Cristina Mata Estacio

Autonomous University of Madrid | UAM · Terrestrial Ecology Group. Department of Ecology

Linear infrastructure networks, including railways, are undergoing rapid development in order to connect distant urban areas. Particularly, High-Speed Railways are increasingly seen as a viable alternative to domestic flights in many countries. However, this development of linear infrastructures is known to affect the surrounding faunal communities...

Ecological connectivity is key for the long-term viability of species and is necessary when facing disturbance or global change, and geospatial analysis tools are key to exploring it with conservation aims. The vicuña is an ungulate endemic from South American highlands that faced extinction risk fifty years ago and is now slowly expanding and incr...

The Edwards’s sand racer (Psammodromus edwarsianus) was recognised as distinct from the Spanish sand racer (P. hispanicus) a decade ago, but both their distributions and interspecific range limits are poorly defined. Results of sampling both species along 70km of the Conquense Drove Road (Central Spain) indicate a clear North/South segregation, wit...

Ecological connectivity among protected Natura 2000 sites is a priority for conservation in Europe due to the increasing pressure on biodiversity from human activities and climate change. Drove roads, the traditional paths used to move livestock through the territory, have been proposed as potential ecological corridors due to their large extent, c...

Wing area, wing loading, and aspect ratio are key variables for studies of avian comparative ecology, despite the complexity of measuring wing characteristics in living and museum specimens. The systematic databases of feather photographs available on the Internet may offer an alternative way of obtaining such morphometric data. Here, we evaluate w...

Roads have impacts on the fauna arising from habitat fragmentation, roadkill and the barrier effect. Furthermore, roads lead species to change their activity with repercussions on predator–prey interactions and trigger indirect effects that are currently unknown. This study analyzes the effect of a motorway on the trophic behavior of the terrestria...

Social prey species respond to predation risk by modifying habitat selection and grouping behaviour. These responses may depend on both actual predation risk (predator probability of occurrence) and/or on perceived predation risk associated with habitat structure. Other factors like food availability and co‐occurrence with other species may also af...

Wildlife passages are currently built at roads and railway lines to re-establish connectivity. However, little is known about whether predator-prey interactions may reduce the effectiveness of the crossing structures. We evaluated the co-occurrence patterns of predator-prey species-pairs at 113 crossing structures, noting their coincidence at the s...

Los herbívoros sociales responden al riesgo de depredación modificando su selección de hábitat y la estructura y cohesión de los grupos. Estas respuestas pueden depender del riesgo real de depredación (presencia de depredador) y del percibido (asociado con la estructura del hábitat y la presencia de otras especies), así como de la disponibilidad de...

Los herbívoros sociales responden al riesgo de depredación modificando su selección de hábitat y la estructura y cohesión de los grupos. Estas respuestas pueden depender del riesgo real de depredación (presencia de depredador) y del percibido (asociado con la estructura del hábitat y la presencia de otras especies), así como de la disponibilidad de...

Protected areas help to decrease human impacts on threatened mammals but do not always include species’ core habitats. Here we focus on the Vulnerable taruka Hippocamelus antisensis near the Atacama Desert, Chile, a population that is mainly threatened by interactions with local human communities. We develop a species distribution model for taruka...

Grouping behavior of social ungulates may depend on both predator occurrence and perceived predation risk associated with habitat structure, reproductive state, and density of conspecifics. Over 3 years, we studied grouping behavior of guanaco (Lama guanicoe) families in Chilean Patagonia during the birthing season and determined their response to...

Growth of wild ungulate populations within protected areas can cause an expansion towards surrounding non-protected areas and lead to conflicts with human activities. The spatial and demographic structure of colonizing populations inform about their state and potential trends, since the initial colonization by dispersing individuals precedes the es...

Landscape disturbance by roads may increase abundance of prey in verges (i.e., strips of terrain adjacent to roadways) or create other features that can attract carnivores and expose them to a higher risk of mortality by vehicle collision. We studied a system that included European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) and their predators in central Spai...

Large high-speed railway (HSR) networks are planned for the near future to accomplish increased transport demand with low energy consumption. However, high-speed trains produce unknown avian mortality due to birds using the railway and being unable to avoid approaching trains. Safety and logistic difficulties have precluded until now mortality esti...

Large-scale transportation infrastructures, such as high-speed railway (HSR) systems, cause changes in surrounding ecosystems, thus generating direct and indirect impacts on bird communities. Such impacts are rooted in the individual responses of birds to infrastructure components, such as habitat occupancy of railway proximities, the use of struct...

The effects of roads on the fauna of their surroundings, negative ones for most species, have been widely studied over recent decades. Nevertheless, little is known of changes in the activity patterns of carnivores near roads, which determine what impacts that they may experience. An intensive 2-year study of the carnivore community around a 5-km s...

Man-made ecosystems, such as those associated with transport infrastructure, are common worldwide, offering both opportunities and risks to wildlife. Thus, it is essential to ensure the appropriate design and monitoring of such structures to facilitate their integration into the environment. Here, we investigated the impact of uncapped tubular pole...

Resource extraction projects generate a diversity of negative effects on the environment that are difficult to predict and mitigate. Consequently, adaptive management approaches have been advocated to develop effective responses to impacts that were not predicted. Mammal populations living in or around mine sites are frequently of management concer...

Road barrier effect is among the foremost negative impacts of roads on wildlife. Knowledge of the factors responsible for the road barrier effect is crucial to understand and predict species' responses to roads, and to improve mitigation measures in the context of management and conservation. We built a set of hypothesis aiming to infer the most pr...

Microsatellite genotypes. Microsatellite genotypes of the 302 wood mice samples arranged by trap line in GENALEX format. (XLSX)

NetLogo model. Code for the simulation model. (NLOGO)

Tables A-F, Figs A-B. Estimates of effective population size using LDNe and ONeSAMP (Table A). Original and adjusted p-values for the HWE test (Table B). Loci with possible null alleles identified by MICRO-CHECKER (Table C). Estimates of genetic diversity for each trap line (Table D). Estimates of genetic differentiation between opposite highway si...

Feral domestic ungulates may compete with the populations of wild herbivores with which they coexist, particularly so in arid regions. The potential competition between wild camelids and feral donkeys at the eastern sector of the Atacama Desert is evaluated in terms of their coincidence or segregation in habitat use and complemented with a comparis...

Human activities alter ecosystems where they are built and they frequently shape in the mid- or long-term their structure and function. Thus, it is essential to know how new infrastructures and technologies impact species in order to properly evaluate their foreseeable effects if they become widespread. In this context, it is urgent to estimate the...

Some small mammal species use road verges as a habitat for sheltering. As a result, their populations suffer mortality from roadkill in an unknown extent. We analysed the road mortality of small mammals and the population impact of roadkill on wood mouse along 1 year on a 4-km motorway stretch. To account for potential bias in carcass sampling, we...

The potential for predators to use wildlife crossing structures for hunting could result in some species being preyed upon more frequently than elsewhere in the landscape. What would the consequences be if predators learn that hunting success is greater at wildlife crossing structures and develop preferences for these locations? Researchers and eco...

Patterns of small mammal habitat selection vary according to scale, although there are discrepancies about the importance of macro and micro-scale factors in rodent community assembly. We assess whether differences in their micro and macrohabitat selection patterns explain the coexistence of two sympatric rodents, Mus spretus and Apodemus sylvaticu...

Linear infrastructures represent one of the most important human impacts on natural habitats and exert several effects on mammal populations. Motorways are recognized as a major cause of habitat fragmentation and degradation and of biodiversity loss. However, it is unknown whether motorways lead to increased physiological stress reactions in wild a...

Apart from safety issues, most scientific literature on the road/wildlife conflict has been focused on the analysis of the impacts of roads on animal populations. However, the integration of roads into ecosystems does not follow straightforwardly from such analyses as it depends on interactions between the infrastructure, the management operations...

Multiple factors determine the use and effectiveness of wildlife passages and crossings installed in new roads as mitigation measures against the barrier effect. It is unknown whether factors such as seasonality determine the use of these structures. This analyses the seasonality of structure used by vertebrates. Forty-eight transverse structures c...

Understanding the interactions between predators and prey is essential for predicting the effects of disturbances to ecosystems. Motorways produce changes in the surrounding biotic and abiotic environment and hence have multiple impacts on wildlife. Some species are known to change their activity patterns in the proximity of motorways but the impli...

The important increment in the number of constructions in the Spanish transportation network has resulted in the creation of new infrastructures running more or less parallel to the existing ones, leading to what is known as infrastructure corridors. In view of this situation, and in a context where the need to minimize the environmental consequenc...

Competition arises when two co-occuring species share a limiting resource. Potential for competition is higher when species have coexisted for a short time, as it is the case for herbivores and livestock introduced in natural systems. Sheep, introduced in the late 19(th) century in Patagonia, bear a great resemblance in size and diet to the guanaco...

Understanding how roads affect the persistence of animal populations is one of the challenges of road ecology. Small mammals are of great interest on account of their value as indicators of environmental impacts and their key role in ecosystems. Nevertheless, there is a large gap in our knowledge of small mammal communities in the proximity of road...

Noise produces multiple effects on ecosystems and it influences habitat use by vertebrates near roads. Thus, it may reduce the effectiveness of mitigation measures installed on roads to alleviate population fragmentation. This study analyses the effects of noise on the use by vertebrates of 19 underpasses at a motorway. It employs generalised linea...

Tesis Doctoral inédita leída en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias, Departamento de Ecología. Fecha de lectura 11-05-2007 Bibliogr.: p. 167-180

Numerous road and railway construction projects include costly mitigation measures to offset the barrier effect produced on local fauna, despite the scarcity of data on the effectiveness of such mitigation measures. In this study, we evaluate the utility of different types of crossing structures. Vertebrate use of 43 transverse crossing structures...

Roads, railways and other linear infrastructure are pervasive components of most landscapes throughout the world. Combined with the effect of vehicles, they have the potential to cause mortality in wildlife, severely disrupt animal move ment and increase the risk of local extinction. Management agencies and conservation organisations currently spen...

Fenced roads fragment terrestrial vertebrate populations, the individuals of which are forced to cross these infrastructures using transverse structures inherent to the road’s construction (culverts, over- and underpasses) or other structures specially adapted or constructed for use by the fauna (enlarged culverts and bridges, ecoducts). The inform...