Camera-trapping study reveals scale-dependent niche partitioning between wolves and mesocarnivores, indicating temporal shifts enable carnivore coexistence in human-dominated landscapes.
Key Points
To determine whether carnivore sympatry is hierarchically structured across spatial scales during large carnivore recolonization in human-dominated landscapes.
Deploys a nested camera-trapping design across coarse (10 km) and fine (5 km) grids in Tuchola Forest, northern Poland.
Integrates Joint Species Distribution Models (JSDMs) with diel activity analyses to evaluate interactions among recolonizing grey wolves, mesocarnivores, ungulate prey, and human activity.
Wolf distribution was primarily restricted by human presence at the broad landscape scale, but wolves prioritized ungulate prey tracking and fine-scale human avoidance within occupied ranges.
Mesocarnivores showed no evidence of suppression by wolves or humans, instead converging on human-modified areas alongside domestic cats.
Carnivore coexistence across the landscape depended on temporal activity offsets rather than strict spatial segregation.