Among the most widespread forms of landscape modification by humans is the construction, use and maintenance of roads. To understand the forces that drive population and ecosystem dynamics, it is important that we understand the scope of the ecological effects of roads of all types. Several studies have shown that animals avoid areas close to human activities Thus, animals should occur in lower densities close to roads or in areas with high road density and traffic volume.
We test those hypotheses in the Doñana natural area. We designed 38 transects along which we estimate ungulates density counting pellets of 4 species (red deer, wild boar, cow and horse). We also expect that the feral species (cow and horse) should be less impacted by roads than the 2 other. We also wish to determine the threshold distance for that road impact. This type of knowledge will be relevant for conservation plan.