Prerequisites for coexistence: human pressure and refuge habitat availability shape continental-scale habitat use patterns of a large carnivore

ContextBehavioral adjustments by large carnivores can be a key factor facilitating their coexistence with people in shared landscapes. Landscape composition might be a key factor determining how large carnivores can adapt to occurring alongside humans, yet broad-scale analyses investigating adjustments of habitat use across large gradients of human pressure and landscape composition are lacking.ObjectivesHere, we investigate adjustments in habitat use by Eurasian lynx ( Lynx lynx ) in response to varying availability of refuge habitats (i.e., forests and rugged terrain) and human landscape modification.MethodsWe used a large tracking dataset including 434 individuals from seven populations to analyze variation in lynx’ use of refuge habitats and landscape modification at a continental scale.ResultsWe found that lynx use refuge habitats more intensively with increasing landscape modification, selecting forests most strongly in otherwise open landscapes and rugged terrain in mountainous regions. Higher forest availability enabled lynx to place their home ranges in more human-modified landscapes. Human pressure and refuge habitat availability also shaped temporal patterns of lynx habitat use, affecting daytime-nighttime differences in refuge habitat use, as well as females’ association with human-modified habitats during the first months after kittens are born.ConclusionsOur findings suggest a remarkable adaptive capacity of lynx towards human pressure and underline the importance of refuge habitats for enabling coexistence between large carnivores and people. More broadly, we highlight that the composition of landscapes determines how large carnivores can adapt to human pressure, and that both factors interact in shaping large carnivore habitat use and distributions at broad scales.