Human Footprint and Forest Disturbance Reduce Space Use of Brown Bears (Ursus arctos) Across Europe.

Three-quarters of the planet's land surface has been altered by humans, with consequences for animal ecology, movements and related ecosystem functioning. Species often occupy wide geographical ranges with contrasting human disturbance and environmental conditions, yet, limited data availability across species' ranges has constrained our understanding of how human pressure and resource availability jointly shape intraspecific variation of animal space use. Leveraging a unique dataset of 758 annual GPS movement trajectories from 375 brown bears (Ursus arctos) across the species' range in Europe, we investigated the effects of human pressure (i.

Ontogeny shapes individual dietary specialization in female European brown bears (Ursus arctos).

Individual dietary specialization, where individuals occupy a subset of a population's wider dietary niche, is a key factor determining a species resilience against environmental change. However, the ontogeny of individual specialization, as well as associated underlying social learning, genetic, and environmental drivers, remain poorly understood. Using a multigenerational dataset of female European brown bears (Ursus arctos) followed since birth, we discerned the relative contributions of environmental similarity, genetic heritability, maternal effects, and offspring social learning from the mother to individual specialization.

Scavenger-induced scattering of wild boar carcasses over large distances and its implications for disease management.

Vertebrate scavengers provide essential ecosystem services such as accelerating carrion decomposition by consuming carcasses, exposing tissues to microbial and invertebrate decomposers, and recycling nutrients back into the ecosystem. Some scavengers do not consume carcasses on site but rather scatter their remains in the surroundings, which might have important implications for nutrient transport, forensic investigations and the spread of diseases such as African Swine Fever. However, only a few studies have investigated and measured the scatter distances.

Behavioural responses of brown bears to roads and hunting disturbance.

Harvest regulations commonly attenuate the consequences of hunting on specific segments of a population. However, regulations may not protect individuals from non-lethal effects of hunting and their consequences remain poorly understood. In this study, we compared the movement rates of Scandinavian brown bears (,  = 47) across spatiotemporal variations in risk in relation to the onset of bear hunting.

Testing foraging optimization models in brown bears: Time for a paradigm shift in nutritional ecology?

How organisms obtain energy to survive and reproduce is fundamental to ecology, yet researchers use theoretical concepts represented by simplified models to estimate diet and predict community interactions. Such simplistic models can sometimes limit our understanding of ecological principles. We used a polyphagous species with a wide distribution, the brown bear (Ursus arctos), to illustrate how disparate theoretical frameworks in ecology can affect conclusions regarding ecological communities.