Citizen science and other records
Citizen science and other non-systematic records provided a smaller
sample of 1705 roadkill records but offered a much wider geographical
coverage than the systematic data with records from all 24 provinces of
Ecuador (Figure 2). Most records were from ManabĂ province (362), Napo
(302), and Pichincha (186). Records were mainly obtained from the REMFA
citizen science project (698 records), iNaturalist (556 records), and
from 7 scientific studies that reported 154 roadkill records collected
sporadically, not in a systematic survey. Our initiative REMFA offers
different ways to report roadkill and we found difference in frequency
of use, with most data reported via Whatsapp (457 records), followed by
the Epicollect App (165 records), Social networks (Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram; 73 records), and Email (3 records).
Among all non-systematic records, mammals were the most registered group
(646 records, 63 species), followed by birds (485 records, 127 species),
reptiles (391 records, 86 species) and amphibians (178 records, 22
species). Two marsupial mammals (D. marsupialis and D. pernigra )
and the yellow warbler (S. petechia ) were the most frequently
reported species (250, 104, and 81 respectively. Table 4). Several
species were reported from multiple locations and provinces, withD. marsupialis roadkill reports from 16 provinces, D.
pernigra from eleven, Tamandua mexicana and Conepatus
semistriatus from nine, and Coragyps atratus from eight
provinces.
As with the systematic data, most records represented species classified
as Least Concern by the IUCN Red List (IUCN, 2022) but there were twelve
species of conservation concern, four currently listed as Data
Deficient, and one not yet assessed by the IUCN (Table 5).