Global wildlife roadkill research: a bibliometric synthesis of historical trends, thematic gaps, and future directions
DOI: 10.1007/s11252-025-01747-x
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Summary
This bibliometric synthesis examines the historical trends, thematic gaps, and future directions of global wildlife roadkill research. Motivated by the intensifying ecological pressures from expanding road networks, the study aims to quantify the evolution of this interdisciplinary field, which treats roadkill as a critical indicator of habitat fragmentation and biodiversity loss. The authors seek to identify structural imbalances in current literature to inform more effective conservation strategies and sustainable infrastructure planning. The researchers conducted a systematic bibliometric analysis of 1,453 peer-reviewed publications retrieved from the Scopus database, covering the period from 1955 to 2023. After excluding non-research items and irrelevant studies, the final dataset included journal articles, reviews, conference papers, and book chapters. Using the Bibliometrix R package, the authors analyzed publication growth, citation dynamics, co-authorship networks, and keyword co-occurrence patterns. They also performed a content analysis of selected influential papers to extract data on affected taxa and mitigation strategies. The results reveal a rapid expansion in research output since 2000, with over 75% of studies published after 2010. Geographic distribution is highly skewed, with the United States, Brazil, Canada, and Australia accounting for 49% of total output, while biodiversity-rich regions like Southeast Asia and Africa remain underrepresented. Taxonomic biases are evident, with mammals (44%) and herpetofauna (27%) dominating the literature, whereas birds and invertebrates are underrepresented. Furthermore, most studies focus on species classified as “Least Concern,” neglecting those at higher extinction risk. Keyword analysis identified three dominant thematic clusters: core road ecology and applied conservation, human–wildlife interactions, and taxon-specific biodiversity studies. Despite the availability of scalable tools like citizen science and machine learning, their application in roadkill research remains limited. The study concludes that significant gaps exist in the taxonomic and geographic coverage of wildlife roadkill research. The authors emphasize the need for longitudinal studies, inclusive representation of underrepresented taxa and regions, and interdisciplinary approaches. By addressing these imbalances, the field can better inform policies that reconcile infrastructural development with biodiversity preservation, ultimately reducing wildlife–vehicle collisions and mitigating broader ecological disruptions.
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | OpenAlex-citations | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-20 |
| archive | success | unpaywall | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-26 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-26 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-20 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-20 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-20 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-20 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 6 | 2026-06-20 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-26; verification: verified.
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- Synthesis & Review: research agenda