Agriculture intensity and landscape configuration influence the spatial use of wildcats across Europe

Abstract

Land use intensification is increasing worldwide and affects wildlife movements, particularly of specialist car-nivores. 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.