Space is one of the most disputed resources between humans and other wildlife species in modern human-dominated landscapes. Successful wildlife management and conservation requires a deep understanding of the interactions between a species and the space where it lives, including both natural and human-related factors on fundamental ecological processes. The high spatio-temporal resolution of Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking data turns tagged animals into in-situ sensors of the environment, and allows investigating how environmental changes affect species¿ distribution and ecology. Large carnivores, in particular, with their wide movement ranges and large spatial requirements are highly susceptible to human-related disturbance, such as infrastructure development; as such, they can represent an ideal case study to investigate the effects of human infrastructures and activities on species¿ spatial ecology at multiple levels. In this project, we aim at identifying areas that might be strategic for the conservation of brown bears (Ursus arctos) in south-eastern European (i.e. Dinaric-Pindos population) and central Italy (i.e. Apennine population; U. arctos marsicanus), accounting for both natural and human-related factors. After a preliminary phase of critical literature review concerning known sources of anthropogenic disturbance to large fauna in Europe (phase I), we will study resource selection (phase II) to identify major landscape elements selected or avoided by Dinaric-Pindos bears. The information gathered at this stage will be then used to model potential ecological corridors for intra-population long-distance movements (phase III). Finally, we will investigate potential bear habitat-mediated responses to hunting disturbance for bears in central Italy, focussing in the area surrounding the Lazio, Abruzzo e Molise National Park (phase IV).
The study is benefitting of a strategic collaboration with the research team operating at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA) in Trondheim (Norway), taking great advantage of the strong expertise of its researchers on both animal movement and connectivity issues, currently active in developing some of the investigation techniques that will be of use to meet our objectives (Phase III). Using cutting-edge scientific techniques to assess human-related impacts on brown bears in these regions of Europe has a twofold advantage; on one hand, it might allow to unveil unprecedented information at the local level on bear behavioural responses to human presence and activities for still poorly known populations (i.e. Dinaric-Pindos bears); on the other hand, the information on bear spatial requirements gathered at the local level will be pivotal to guide future brown bear management and conservation actions (Phase III and IV). In fact, this project will make great use of cutting-edge techniques in the fields of landscape ecology and conservation biology. Further innovations will be used to analyse landscape connectivity, which will be assessed integrating theory derived from physics, mathematics and ecology. In particular, the Randomised Shortest Path (RSP), is a recent algorithm developed to identify the most likely and unlikely large-scale animal movement paths across the corridor-barrier continuum (Panzacchi et al. 2016). Therefore, the RSP bridges the gap between the most common approaches to predict trajectories (i.e. Least Cost Path, Random Walk). Although the RSP is mathematically well-grounded and widely used in a variety of fields such as artificial intelligence, computer science and network analyses, it has been employed only to very few case-studies in ecology. Thus, this project will constitute an ideal opportunity to test its applicability and power in new ecological contexts. The RSP will be used to simulate animal movements through simulated habitats characterised by different degrees of disturb, to predict the expected response by animals. This simulated-scenario framework, will constitute a powerful instrument to evaluate the consequences of human interventions and environmental changes on habitat quality. Therefore, our workflow will represent a valuable tool for European conservation planning aimed at safeguarding biodiversity in functional ecosystems. In conclusion, the combined use of high resolution habitat data, GIS post-processing analyses and the RSP, will ensure to tackle our research objectives with novel, integrated and highly multi- disciplinary approaches, aimed at producing applicable tools.