Impacts of existing and planned roads on terrestrial mammal habitat in New Guinea

Abstract

AbstractNew Guinea is one of the last regions in the world with vast pristine areas and is home to many endemic species. However, extensive road development plans threaten the island's biodiversity. We quantified habitat fragmentation due to existing and planned roads for 139 terrestrial mammal species in New Guinea. For each species, we calculated the equivalent connected area (ECA) of habitat, a metric that takes into account the area and connectivity of habitat patches in 3 situations: no roads (baseline situation), existing roads (current), and existing and planned roads combined (future). We assessed the effect of roads as the proportion of the ECA remaining in the current and future situations relative to the baseline. To examine whether there were patterns in these relative ECA values, we fitted beta‐regression models relating these values to 4 species characteristics: taxonomic order, body mass, diet, and International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List status. On average across species, current ECA was 89% (SD 12) of baseline ECA. Shawmayer's coccymys (Coccymys shawmayeri) had the lowest amount of current ECA relative to the baseline (53%). In the future situation, the average remaining ECA was 71% (SD 20) of baseline ECA. Future remaining ECA was below 50% of the baseline for 28 species. The montane soft‐furred paramelomys (Paramelomys mollis) had the lowest future ECA relative to the baseline (36%). In general, currently nonthreatened carnivorous species with a large body mass had the greatest reductions of ECA in the future situation. In conclusion, future road development plans imply extensive additional habitat fragmentation for a large number of terrestrial mammal species in New Guinea. It is therefore important to limit the impact of planned roads, for example, by reconsidering the location of planned roads that intersect habitat of the most threatened species, or by the implementation of mitigation measures such as underpasses.