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Humans are fundamentally altering the habitats of wild animals. For predators such as wolves and foxes, humans can be both a source of risk and of resources: human activities drive away wolves, foxes and badgers; at the same time, landscapes shaped by human activity provide food and protection from larger predators. Scientists investigated how large predators occupy and share habitats in a forest area in northern Poland. The results show that wild animals use the same landscape as humans despite their presence, but are active there at different times of day.
The study was conducted by scientists from the Mammal Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences (MRI PAS), Białowieża, the Doñana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC), Seville, und the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW).
Human-induced global change has reached an unprecedented scale and intensity. Through intensive land use and the associated loss of species, humans are permanently altering the habitats and communities of wild animals. “How do predators manage to find their way in landscapes heavily shaped by humans and establish their niche? It is precisely this question that interested us”, says Kathi Kasper, PhD student at the MRI PAS, the EBD-CSIC, the Leibniz-IZW, and author of the study. Humans also behave in a predator-like manner: through hunting and transport infrastructure, they pose a considerable risk to wildlife, but they also create new food resources for wildlife in the form of waste and, in some cases, livestock farming. Similar dynamics also exist amongst wild animals themselves: wolves can pose a threat to smaller carnivores such as foxes and badgers, whilst at the same time carcasses left behind by wolves provide food sources for other predators and scavengers.
Coexistence between humans and predators on several levels
Scientists from the MRI PAS and the Leibniz-IZW studied wildlife populations in the Tuchola Forest in northern Poland, a forested area covering around 3,400 square kilometres, where wolves are now once again densely populated the landscape after more than a century of absence. Using systematically positioned camera traps, the team recorded the habitat use of wolves (Canis lupus), red foxes (Vulpes vulpes), badgers (Meles meles) and martens (Martes spp.). The cameras also recorded human activity, the presence of prey and free-roaming domestic cats.
The camera trap data was analysed at two spatial levels. At the broader landscape level, the scientists investigated which factors determine the occurrence of the various species. At the smaller scale, the focus was on how the animals coordinate their activities and use of space within these landscapes. It is precisely this comparison that provides a crucial insight into how coexistence – that is, living together – between competitors for food and predators can work.
“If we want to understand how wild animals get on with humans and with one another, we need to look closely at the spatial level at which we measure their occurrence. At the level of the entire landscape, wolves can certainly co-occur with humans. However, that does not mean that they actually encounter one another in the same place at the same time”, explains Dries P. J. Kuijper from the MRI PAS.
Not necessarily spatial separation, but temporal avoidance
At a large-scale level, it is evident that factors such as road traffic and human daytime activities are the primary determinants of wolf distribution. Wolves avoid humans as much as possible and initially colonise areas that are furthest away from human settlements. However, within the landscape they use on a smaller spatial scale, they prioritise finding prey, and avoiding human presence is no longer the most important driver for their spatial activity. Human-modified parts of the landscape, such as roads or areas close to settlements, are nevertheless used primarily at night or at times when the risk of encountering humans is at its lowest.
In the case of smaller predators, the scientists found little evidence that wolves or humans were affecting their populations. Foxes, badgers and martens make opportunistic use of habitats shaped by humans. It was particularly striking that they occupy a similar ecological niche to free-roaming domestic cats.
For the conservation and management of wildlife, this means that observations should not be reduced to a single spatial scale. Only by combining the landscape level with local, temporal behavioural patterns can we see how wild animals share their habitats under the conditions of a human-shaped environment. The more closely different species share the same habitat, the more important temporal separation becomes for them. This temporal flexibility can also alleviate competition between different predators.
Katharina Kasper
PhD student at the Department of Ecological Dynamics of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW), the Mammal Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences (MRI PAS), Białowieża, and the Doñana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC), Sevilla
email: k.kasper@ibs.bialowieza.pl
Dr. Aimara Planillo
Scientist at the the Department of Ecological Dynamics of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) and at the
Doñana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC), Seville
E-Mail: aimara.planillo@ebd.csic.es
Prof. D. Stephanie Kramer-Schadt
Head of the Department of Ecological Dynamics of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) und Professor at the Technische Universität Berlin
phone: +49 (0)30 5168 714
email: kramer@izw-berlin.de
Kasper K, Kramer-Schadt S, Say-Sallaz E, Kirsch AJ, Gehrke M, Szafrańska PA, Churski M, Szewczyk M, Kuijper DPJ, Planillo A (2026): Who’s afraid of the big bad human? Multi-scale niche partitioning among wolves and mesocarnivores in a human-dominated landscape. Diversity and Distributions, 32, e70257. DOI: 10.1111/ddi.70257.
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Biology, Environment / ecology, Social studies, Zoology / agricultural and forest sciences
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