S1E3: Roadkill in the Andes

This episode’s guest is Pablo Medrano-Vizcaíno, whose dataset of roadkill in the Ecuadorian Andes was featured in the July 7, 2021 edition of the Data Is Plural newsletter. Pablo describes why he studies roadkill, how he collected the data, the challenges of identifying species from their remains, and the future of road ecology research.

Relevant and mentioned links:

• “Geography of roadkills within the Tropical Andes Biodiversity Hotspot: Poorly known vertebrates are part of the toll,” Pablo’s 2021 paper with Santiago Espinosa, and its accompanying dataset.
• “Roadkill patterns in Latin American birds and mammals,” a 2022 paper by Pablo and co-authors examining data from 85 roadkill surveys.
• Red Ecuatoriana para el Monitoreo de Fauna Atropellada, Pablo’s citizen science project project, collecting roadkill data in Ecuador.
• Uku Pacha Ground Snake (Atractus Ukupacha) and Klebba's Snail-Eater (Dipsas klebbai), two previously-undescribed snake species found in Pablo and Santiago’s research.
• “Roadkill provide a novel way to sample an area’s animals,” an article in the Economist (behind paywall) discussing Pablo and Santiago’s work.

Theme music by Nikhil Sonnad.