Summary/Abstract
The frequency with which wildlife such as deer cause vehicle crashes varies based on the season. There are typically three distinct peaks in wildlife-vehicle crashes: one in the spring, one in the summer, and one in autumn. These correspond to phases in mammals’ activities, including feeding, reproduction, and raising young, which cause greater activity. Wildlife-vehicle crashes therefore provide a useful proxy to detect shifts in the behavior patterns of animals caused by shifting resource availability. Researchers studied deer in the Czech Republic as a model species. They used crash data from police departments in the Czech Republic and temperature data from the region to find a correlation between rising temperatures and an earlier spring peak. The spring crash peak, which corresponds to the time in which males establish and defend territory, has been shifting to earlier months over the past several decades. This relationship was determined to not be affected by changes in traffic patterns. This study provides evidence that anthropogenic climate change is altering the behavior of organisms and ecosystems, including their temporal patterns of activity.