Modeling habitat suitability accounting for forest structure and dynamics: Apennine brown bear as case study

Apennines brown bears (Ursus arctos marsicanus; Altobello 1921), isolated from the other European bear populations for at least 1500 years, are critically endangered and confined to a restricted range (Abruzzo-Lazio-Molise National Park, PNALM, and surrounding areas) in Italy. In light of the persistent small size of the Apennine brown bear population and its high human-caused mortality rates reported during the past decades, a renewed effort for conservation of this population is critically and urgently needed. Whereas previous habitat selection studies focused on predicting the potential species distribution to evaluate the effectiveness of the national and regional networks of protected areas, and the detection of ecological traps and structural connectivity linking the critical habitat patches at landscape scale, in this thesis I performed fine scale habitat selection analysis to develop habitat management schemes that enhance the conservation of this unique brown bear population. Specifically, I investigated all those environmental and ecological drivers that can affect habitat selection by bears, accounting for the hierarchical nature of resource selection (i.e., landscape, home range, and single forest patch scales), and the behavioral responses related to seasonal and circadian effects. Also, I investigated the impact of climate change and alternatives forest management scenarios, projecting future forest structure and dynamics to quantify changes in habitat suitability for bears during the next 100 years.