DOI: 10.5061/dryad.cz8w9gjg2
title: Data from: Modelling amphibian road crossing points in a dynamic environment

description: Roads are ubiquitous infrastructures that have detrimental effects on
 wildlife and contribute to increased mortality and fragmentation of animal
 populations. Although several mitigation measures are available to reduce
 road impacts, their planning rarely considers the dynamic nature of the
 environment, which may reflect into temporal variation in habitat
 suitability and connectivity for animal species. Consequently, the
 effectiveness of such measures may fall short of expectations. By
 combining high-resolution satellite imagery and connectivity modelling, we
 propose a generalizable approach to identify the most probable crossing
 points across a barrier at different time snapshots. This information may
 be pivotal in planning mitigation measures that can take into account
 dynamic components. We collected occurrence data of three farmland-adapted
 anurans and high spatiotemporal definition Sentinel-2 multispectral images
 to build habitat suitability models that capture the relationship between
 the environment and the species within the study area (an agricultural
 area crossed by a highway). We then projected the models onto six
 snapshots from two subsequent amphibian breeding seasons. Finally, we used
 circuit theory-based connectivity models for each snapshot/species to
 identify the areas with the highest probability of highway crossing in
 each snapshot. We found remarkable differences over time for each species,
 both in suitability and connectivity. Furthermore, the distribution and
 relative importance of the crossing points changed greatly between the two
 years as well as within the same. Some crossing points were stable over
 time, while others were important for a specific snapshot. Synthesis and
 applications. Not considering the spatiotemporal variability of the
 environment can lead to a loss of crucial information when modelling the
 localities at which the predicted flows of animals intersect the highway.
 The dynamics of roads-affected ecosystems can be taken into account using
 freely available remote sensing data. This can be an important element in
 achieving the goal of maintaining connectivity and minimizing wildlife
 mortality.
description: # Modelling amphibian road crossing points in a dynamic environment
 Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.cz8w9gjg2](10.5061/dryad.cz8w9gjg2) ##
 Description of the data and file structure Reported data were the basis
 for Habitat Suitability Modelling and subsequent Connectivity Models. Data
 includes the occurrence data of the three amphibian target species (*Hyla
 intermedia*, *Pelophylax* synkl. *esculentus*, *Bufotes viridis*),
 collected in 2021 and 2022. The values of the Sentinel-2 spectral bands we
 used as predictors are Copernicus Sentinel data [2025] and can be
 downloaded from the Copernicus Browser
 ([https://browser.dataspace.copernicus.eu/](https://browser.dataspace.copernicus.eu/)). ### Files and variables #### File: occurencedata.csv **Description:**  Occurrence points of the three target species. Observations missing important information have already been removed from this dataset. Here you can find the data we used for all the modelling steps. They are the occurrence data of the three amphibians species we collected in 2021 and 2022. ##### Variables * prg: progressive number of the observation * lon: longitude in Coordinate reference system (CRS) "EPSG: 4326" * lat: latitude in Coordinate reference system (CRS) "EPSG: 4326" * spp: species: Pelesc = *Pelophylax* synkl. *esculentus*; Hylint = *Hyla intermedia*; Bufvir = *Bufotes viridis* * num: number of observed individuals * date: date of the observation * month: month of the observation * year: year of the observation * time: time of day of the observation ## Code/software We analysed the data in R environment, using the package *terra* for managing spatial data and package *dismo* for Habitat Suitability Modelling. Connectivity analyses were performed using the software Circuitscape 5 in the programming language Julia. Codes and scripts can be made available on request.