Agriculture intensity and landscape configuration influence the spatial use of wildcats across Europe
[EN] 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...
| Autores: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión aceptada para publicación |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2023 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad de León |
| Repositorio: | BULERIA. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de León |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:buleria.unileon.es:10612/27365 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320722004074 https://hdl.handle.net/10612/27365 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Ecología. Medio ambiente Zoología Felis silvestris Home range Extensive agriculture Land use intensification Landscape heterogeneity Spatial ecology 3106.01 Conservación 3105.09 Influencia del Hábitat 2401.06 Ecología Animal 2401.18 Mamíferos |
| Sumario: | [EN] 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 |
|---|