ArticlePeerJ2021
A decrease in reports on road-killed animals based on citizen science during COVID-19 lockdown.
Article in PeerJ, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- Retrospective multicenter analysis of causes of death in wild mammals in Southern Germany (2019-2023).Frontiers in veterinary science · 2026Article
- Lockdown's Silver Lining? Different Levels of Roadkill during the COVID-19 Times in Lithuania.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Article
- The effect of COVID-19 confinement on the activity behaviour of red deer.Global ecology and conservation · 2023Article
- A dataset of road-killed vertebrates collected via citizen science from 2014-2020.Scientific data · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTo avoid the uncontrolled spread of COVID-19 in early 2020, many countries have implemented strict lockdown measures for several weeks. In Austria, the lockdown in early spring has led to a significant drop in human outdoor activities, especially in road traffic. In Project Roadkill, a citizen science project which aims to collect data on road-killed animals, we observed a significant decrease in reported roadkills.
methodsBy asking the citizen scientists through a survey how their travelling routines were affected, we investigated if the observed decrease in roadkills was grounded in less animals being killed by traffic, or in citizen scientists staying at home and thus reporting less road-killed animals.
resultsA majority of the respondents stated that they felt to have reported less roadkills during the lockdown, regardless if they changed their travelling routine or not. This observation in combination with the overall decrease in road traffic indicates that fewer animals were killed during the lockdown. We conclude that when analyzing citizen science data, the effects of lockdown measures on reporting behaviour should be considered, because they can significantly affect data and interpretation of these data.
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Registered trials
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