Journal
BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION
Volume 191, Issue -, Pages 291-299Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2015.07.007
Keywords
Eurasian lynx; Anthropogenic disturbance; Habitat selection
Funding
- Norwegian Environment Agency
- Research Council of Norway
- Office of Environmental Affairs in the county of Oslo Akershus
- Office of Environmental Affairs in the county of Ostfold
- Office of Environmental Affairs in the county of Vestfold
- Office of Environmental Affairs in the county of Telemark
- Office of Environmental Affairs in the county of Buskerud
- municipality of Fla
- municipality of Gol
- municipality of Hjartdal
- municipality of Nes
- municipality of Nore og Uvdal
- municipality of Rollag
- municipality of Sauherad
- municipality of Tinn
- municipality of Al
- FRIA (Fonds pour l'Encouragement de la Recherche Scientifique dans l'Industrie et l'Agriculture)
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Eurasian lynx are often regarded as being particularly sensitive to human land-use. However, in the European context where human influence is pervasive, the conservation of lynx requires that they be integrated into the human-dominated landscape. Although previous studies have looked at how lynx respond to human land-use in a broad sense, they have failed to examine the details of how different types of human induced impacts (forest fragmentation, human density, different types of transport infrastructure) influence distinct lynx behaviors. Furthermore, they have not examined the extent to which lynx modify their fine scaled avoidance behavior of anthropogenic landscape features according to the specific behaviors (resting sites, kill sites, movement) in which they are engaged and how these relationships are modified by prey density or the sex of the lynx. We used Resource Selection Functions to examine how 19 GPS-marked lynx in southeastern Norway responded to an index of cumulative human habitat modification while engaged in different activities. We found that lynx select for areas with medium levels of human modification, avoiding both the very highly modified and the areas with low degrees of modification. Females in general appear to be less tolerant of human modification than males, especially when it comes to resting sites. Terrain (ruggedness and elevation) appears to be important in permitting lynx to exploit heavily modified areas. Our study demonstrates that lynx show a nuanced response to human habitat modification, which offers hope for their conservation in Europe. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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