WEEVILS DIE IN VAIN? UNDERSTANDING MESSAGES FROM ROAD-KILLED WEEVILS (COLEOPTERA: CURCULIONOIDEA)

Road mortality has a negative impact on numerous animals with conservation importance, including invertebrates. Some weevils are considered pest insects, thus there is little concern when they fall victim to road traffic. Nevertheless, information offered by road-killed weevils can be of conservation, biological, or zoogeographic value. To understand this information, during 2015 and 2016 we collected 186 road-killed weevils belonging to 23 species from secondary roads with low traffic in eight regions of Romania. As for other animal groups, weevil road mortality is influenced by the habitat surrounding the road and the time of year. The highest number of road-killed weevil species was recorded on roads surrounded by sandy areas. In areas surrounded by forests, the number of road-killed species was low, but the Shannon-Wiever diversity index was high, and some species were present only in these regions. The highest numbers of weevils were killed by cars in the spring. Some road-killed species are first records for the region they were identified in, others are rare in Romania. The mountain species Donus oxalis (Herbst, 1795) was encountered at just 80 m altitude in the Danube Gorge.