Agriculture intensity and landscape configuration influence the spatial use of wildcats across Europe

Land use intensification is increasing worldwide and affects wildlife movements, particularly of specialist carnivores. Resource availability and anthropogenic activities drive the extent and shape of home range size. Wildlife may respond to decreased resource availability under intensification scenarios by increasing their home ranges; however they may be less affected when inhabiting sustainable agricultural landscapes. We investigate whether agricultural practices and landscape configuration influence the spatial behaviour of wildcats, a medium-sized specialist carnivore inhabiting landscapes with different degrees of agricultural presence across Europe. We focus on the effect of the proportions of high impact and low impact agriculture, forest integrity and forest edge density on wildcat home range size. We found that wildcat home range increased along with the proportion of high impact agriculture and the forest integrity, whereas it decreased when forest edge density increased. Forest edge density buffered the detrimental effects caused by high impact agriculture. To enhance the long term conservation of wildcats in Europe it is crucial to protect the sustainable mosaic-structured landscapes and prevent its conversion to homogenous intensified agricultural landscapes.HRV is beneficiary of a PhD scholarship “Severo Ochoa” from the Regional Government of Principality of Asturias. JVLB was supported by a Ramón y Cajal research contract (RYC-2015-18932) from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness. F. Díaz-Ruiz was supported by a postdoctoral contract from the University of Málaga (I Plan Propio de Investigación y Transferencia, call 2020).Peer reviewe

Group size and social status affect scent marking in dispersing female meerkats

Many animal species use scent marks such as feces, urine, and glandular secretions to find mates, advertise their reproductive status, and defend an exclusive territory. Scent marking may be particularly important during dispersal, when individuals emigrate from their natal territory searching for mates and a new territory to settle and reproduce. In this study, we investigated the scent-marking behavior of 30 dispersing female meerkats (Suricata suricatta) during the three consecutive stages of dispersal—emigration, transience, and settlement. We expected marking patterns to differ between dispersal stages, depending on social circumstances such as presence of unrelated mates and social status of the individuals within each dispersing coalition and also to be influenced by water and food availability. We showed that defecation probability increased with group size during the settlement stage, when newly formed groups are expected to signal their presence to other resident groups. Urination probability was higher in subordinate than in dominant individuals during each of the three dispersal stages and it decreased overall as the dispersal process progressed. Urine may, thus, be linked to advertisement of the social status within a coalition. Anal marking probability did not change across dispersal stages but increased with the presence of unrelated males and was higher in dominants than in subordinates. We did not detect any effect of rain or foraging success on defecation and urination probability. Our results suggest that feces, urine, and anal markings serve different communication purposes (e.g., within and between-group communication) during the dispersal process

Characterization of a brown bear aggregation during the hyperphagia period in the Cantabrian Mountains, NW Spain

We characterized a brown bear (Ursus arctos) feeding aggregation that occurred in an oak (Quercus spp.) forest in the Cantabrian Mountains (NW Spain), during the hyperphagia period 2017 (Sep to Dec), which was an atypical year in terms of low fructification success due to late frost events and drought. We described (1) number, sex, and age class of aggregated bears; (2) temporal use of the area; and (3) bear interactions. We identified a minimum of 31 individuals, representing 10% of the estimated Cantabrian bear population. The number of adults increased during the study period, whereas the number of subadults decreased, which could be related to a displacement of subadults by dominant adults. The proximity of the aggregation site to a public road attracted numerous people to observe the bears. To minimize adverse bear-human interactions, we recommend providing educational material on best bear-viewing practices as well as on-site staffing.VP was financially supported by the Excellence Project CGL2017-82782-P financed by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), and the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER, EU).Peer Reviewe

Factores que afectan a la selección de árboles y su abundancia

Trabajo presentado en el XIV Congreso de la SECEM (Sociedad Española para la Conservación y Estudio de los Mamíferos), celebrada en Jaca del 5 al 8 de diciembre de 2019.Peer reviewe