Fernanda Zimmermann Teixeira

• PhD
• PostDoc Position at Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul

Roadkill is widely recognized as one of the primary negative effects of roads on many wildlife species and also has socioeconomic impacts when they result in accidents. A comprehensive dataset of roadkill locations is essential to evaluate the factors contributing to roadkill risk and to enhance our comprehension of its impact on wildlife populatio...

Amid a global infrastructure boom, there is increasing recognition of the ecological impacts of the extraction and consumption of construction minerals, mainly processed as concrete, including significant and expanding threats to global biodiversity. We investigated how high‐level national and international biodiversity conservation policies addres...

The widespread impacts of roads on animal movement have led to the search for innovative mitigation tools. Wildlife crossing structures (tunnels or bridges) are a common approach; however, their effectiveness remains unclear beyond isolated case studies. We conduct an extensive literature review and synthesis to address the question: What is the ev...

Amid a global infrastructure boom, there is increasing recognition of the ecological impacts of the extraction and consumption of construction minerals, mainly as concrete. Recent research highlights the significant and expanding threat these minerals pose to global biodiversity. To what extent is this pressure acknowledged in biodiversity conserva...

In March 2021, as the COVID-19 pandemic raged, two of us decided to organise a virtual symposium on canopy bridges for the American Society of Primatology and Smithsonian's Earth Optimism initiative. Afterall, canopy bridges are a conservation solution that invites optimism in the face of all the challenges confronting the natural world. We were as...

No que se refere à Área de Ciências Ambientais (CiAmb) da Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), criada em 2011, um dos nomes mais respeitados sobre o tema é do querido professor Dr. Carlos Alberto Cioce Sampaio. Coordenador da área por dois anos e adjunto por quatro anos da professora Dra. Maria do Carmo Sobral, além...

Brazil is known as a high biodiversity country, but at the same time, it has an extensive road network that threatens its wildlife and ecosystems. The impacts of roads and railways on vertebrates have been documented extensively, and the discussion concerning the implementation of mitigation measures for terrestrial wildlife has increased in the la...

Road networks affect ecological connectivity, which has implications across different levels of biological organization. There are compelling reasons and sufficient approaches and tools to mainstream ecological connectivity into environmental impact assessments (EIAs) of road projects. In this letter, we discuss ways of overcoming the existing gaps...

Roads disrupt the canopy and can affect arboreal animals in different ways, such as reducing canopy connectivity, generating habitat loss and degradation, and increasing direct mortality. Since arboreal animals mainly use the canopy for movement, mitigation measures for these species usually focus on maintaining or restoring canopy connectivity to...

Construction minerals – sand, gravel, limestone – are the most extracted solid raw materials ¹ and account for most of the world’s anthropogenic mass, which as of 2020 outweighed all of Earth’s living biomass ² . However, knowledge about the magnitude, geography, and profile of this widespread threat to biodiversity remains scarce and scattered 3–6...

Policy and legislation rarely acknowledge the importance of keeping intact ecosystems road- and railroad-free. By modeling Brazil's remaining roadless and railroad-less (RLRL) areas, we found that, although they hold the vast majority of the country's remaining native vegetation (81.5%), because of their limited protection status, only 38% of Brazi...

Para reforçar as estratégias de implementação de mecanismos de salvaguarda da biodiversidade do nosso estado, reduzindo a morte de animais silvestres e garantindo a segurança dos que trafegam nas rodovias sul-mato-grossenses, a Secretaria de Estado de Infraestrutura (SEINFRA), por meio do Projeto Estrada Viva e da colaboração de instituições ligada...

Resumo: O processo de licenciamento ambiental vem sendo continuamente qualificado ao longo das últimas décadas, entretanto, ainda há inúmeras críticas sobre sua qualidade e efetividade. Há diversas propostas de novas abordagens para aumentar a qualidade dos Estudos de Impacto Ambiental (EIAs), objetivando fortalecer as avaliações de impacto e as de...

Wild animals move through landscapes to find water, food, shelter, mates and nesting sites, but roads and traffic make it more difficult and dangerous for them. As many countries move to expand their road networks, especially in tropical areas, an increasing number of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians face the risk of being killed. Roads and...

Biological invasion is one of the main threats to native biodiversity. For a species to become invasive, it must be voluntarily or involuntarily introduced by humans into a nonnative habitat. Mammals were among first taxa to be introduced worldwide for game, meat, and labor, yet the number of species introduced in the Neotropics remains unknown. In...

To improve mitigation planning on railways, it is crucial to accurately assess the number of fatalities resulting from this type of infrastructure. To illustrate the relevance of considering the two main errors from the sampling process (searcher efficiency and carcass persistence), we corrected the estimation of mammal fatalities (> 1 kg) on a 750...

Environmental system modeling and landscape management

Roads and traffic impacts on wildlife populations are well documented. Three major mechanisms can cause them: reduced connectivity, increased mortality and reduced habitat quality. Researchers commonly recommend mitigation based on the mechanism they deem responsible. We reviewed the 2012–2016 literature to evaluate authors' inferences, to determin...

Mortality of animals on roads is a critical threat to many wildlife populations and is poised to increase strongly because of ongoing and planned road construction. If these new roads cannot be avoided, effective mitigation measures will be necessary to stop biodiversity decline. Fencing along roads effectively reduces roadkill and is often used in...

There has been a body of research examining the sounds produced in landscapes. These sounds are commonly defined as soundscapes, however, the term is often used in different contexts. To understand how the various meanings attributed to soundscapes, we identified how soundscapes are represented in the scientific literature and identified current kn...

Context The landscape approach and the ecosystem services (ES) framework have been widely used to investigate human-nature relationships and orient landscape planning and management. However, ecosystem disservices (EDS) and their influence on how people interact with ecosystems have received less attention. Objective We aimed at assessing people’s...

Xenarthrans—anteaters, sloths, and armadillos—have essential functions for ecosystem maintenance, such as insect control and nutrient cycling, playing key roles as ecosystem engineers. Because of habitat loss and fragmentation, hunting pressure, and conflicts with domestic dogs, these species have been threatened locally, regionally, or even across...

Linear infrastructures (e.g. roads, railways or power lines) promote a myriad of negative impacts on wildlife around the world, of which direct mortality is the most visible one. When high mortality rates are found, mitigation measures are often discussed and applied. On the other hand, the lack of mortality is commonly interpreted as evidence of l...

Xenarthrans—anteaters, sloths, and armadillos—have essential functions for ecosystem maintenance, such as insect control and nutrient cycling, playing key roles as ecosystem engineers. Because of habitat loss and fragmentation, hunting pressure, and conflicts with domestic dogs, these species have been threatened locally, regionally, or even across...

Transportation infrastructures are directly responsible for killing billions of animals worldwide. Although the understanding about road impacts have recently increased, the impact of railroads on wildlife has received less attention. The current knowledge concerning the impacts of railroads focuses mainly on large mammals although amphibians might...

Mortality from collision with vehicles is the most visible impact of road traffic on wildlife. Mortality due to roads (hereafter road-kill) can affect the dynamic of populations of many species and can, therefore, increase the risk of local decline or extinction. This is especially true in Brazil, where plans for road network upgrading and expansio...

Mortality from collision with vehicles is the most visible impact of road traffic on wildlife. Mortality due to roads (hereafter road‐kill) can affect the dynamic of populations of many species and can, therefore, increase the risk of local decline or extinction. This is especially true in Brazil, where plans for road network upgrading and expansio...

Understanding road-kill patterns is the first step to assess the potential effects of road mortality on wildlife populations, as well as to define the need for mitigation and support its planning. Reptiles are one of the vertebrate groups most affected by roads through vehicle collisions, both because they are intentionally killed by drivers, and d...

Environmental licensing is a political tool to protect the environment and encourage sustainable development. Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) are the important document for impact assessment of activities during environmental licensing, and all decision-making process and effectiveness depend on its quality. Road construction, paving and wi...

Programas de educação ambiental associados ao processo de licenciamento ambiental são uma importante estratégia para efetivação dos direitos de diferentes atores sociais, incentivando a participação na gestão e nas decisões que afetam a qualidade ambiental. Programas de educação ambiental normalmente estão entre as ações de mitigação e compensação...

Environmental licensing is one of the most important tools of environmental policies in any country, as it allows to adopt preventive and mitigation measures on predicted or observed environmental impacts. However, Environmental Impact Assessments are recurrently criticized due to their low quality and effectiveness to support decisions for project...

The effectiveness of measures installed to mitigate wildlife road‐kill depends on their placement along the road. Road‐kill hotspots are frequently used to identify priority locations for mitigation measures. However, in situations where previous road mortality has reduced population size, road‐kill hotspots may not indicate the best sites for miti...

English version of Siriema user manual For software download, please go to the folowing links nerf-ufrgs.herokuapp.com https://github.com/nerf-ufrgs/siriema

The ongoing expansion of the transportation network is one of the most important threats to tropical ecosystems. In recent years, the Brazilian government is making huge investments in paving and upgrading of the existing road network. It is therefore crucial time to consider how to achieve mitigation of two main road impacts: wildlife mortality an...

Collisions between vehicles and wildlife impact human safety and wildlife conservation. Transportation planners are increasingly involved in planning and implementing road-wildlife mitigation measures to lessen the risk of wildlife-vehicle collision (WVC) as well as provide connectivity opportunities for safe wildlife movement. An understanding of...

The effects of habitat fragmentation and deforestation are exacerbated by some elements, such as roads and power lines, which may become filters or barriers to wildlife movements. In order to mitigate mortality and restore connectivity, wildlife passages are being constructed as linear corridors. The installation of these mitigation measures must b...

The evaluation of road-kill spatial patterns is an important tool to identify the priority of locations for mitigation measures aiming to reduce wildlife mortality on roads. Single-target or multi-species approaches are usually adopted on the implementation of such measures, although their success must be assessed. We aim to test if road-kill hotsp...

The vegetation in the southern Brazilian highlands is characterized by Araucaria forest and Campos grassland. Evidences indicate that Araucaria forest is currently expanding over grassland and that this expansion may occur by nucleation or edge dynamics. Nucleation mechanisms of Araucaria forest expansion are well documented, whereas mechanisms of...

Human interventions in natural environments are the main cause of biodiversity loss worldwide. The situation is not different in southern Brazil, home of five primate species. Although some earlier studies exist, studies on the primates of this region began to be consistently carried out in the 1980s and have continued since then. In addition to im...

A proximidade humana com espécies silvestres tem sido a principal causa de conflitos entre pessoas e bugios-ruivos. No intuito de identificar as ameaças à espécie, desde 1999, cada ocorrência com intervenção do Programa Macacos Urbanos (PMU) vem sendo registrada em protocolos onde são descritas todas as etapas de manejo. Essa sistematização de açõe...

A maior ameaça à diversidade biológica é a perda de hábitat, sendo o processo de fragmentação responsável pelo isolamento de populações e pela maior exposição destas às alterações antrópicas da paisagem do entorno. Esse panorama representa a situação das populações de bugio-ruivo (Cabrera, 1940) na região metropolitana de Porto Alegre, onde as popu...