Michaela Skuban's research while affiliated with The Wildlife Society and other places

... Therefore, establishing or predicting the metaweb should be the first target in communities where data about local realizations (i.e., documented interactions at specific places) are lacking. Our approach differs from using interactions to improve predictions of species distributions, as has been done by recent studies (Lucas et al. 2023;Moens et al. 2022;Poggiato et al. 2022). Although the two are complementary, and answer long-standing calls to include interactions within species distribution models (Wisz et al. 2013), predicting networks in space is a different task serving a different goal: focusing first on the distribution of network structures and its drivers rather than on the distribution of species. ...

... Catford et al. 2022;Palmer et al. 2022), for instance related to the effects of density and distribution of human infrastructure or roads (e.g. González-Bernardo et al. 2023). Second, to achieve appropriate sample sizes for each season, we ran our analyses on pooled data across the whole study period. ...

... Brown bears (Ursus arctos), although considered solitary carnivores (Dahle andSwenson 2003, Swenson et al. 2021), are not antisocial. Social interactions are often observed with brown bear family groups and aggregations at food sources such as salmon streams (Salmonidae), coastal meadows, and garbage dumps (Stonorov and Stokes 1972, Egbert et al. 1976, Smith and Partridge 2004, Peirce and Van Daele 2006, Swenson et al. 2021. Overall, the scientific community has paid little attention to the social lives of brown bears outside of these circumstances, partially because of the difficulty in studying these behaviors. ...

... In May and June, increased bear sightings along/ across roads occur in Scandinavia (personal comments: Stenbacka and Neumann), suggesting that bears occur close to roads during the moose calving season. This period overlaps largely with the bear mating season (García-Rodríguez et al., 2020), where bears show higher activity and larger space use within their home ranges (Dahle & Swenson, 2003), which may come along with the crossing of more roads. In Northern Scandinavia, where bears occur, June-July is also the period of 24-h daylight (i.e., midsummer), which largely increases visibility and thus likely detectability and observation rates of bears. ...

... For example, avoidance patterns (Proctor et al., 2020;Støen et al., 2020) and fast displacement rates (Kite et al., 2016;Roever et al., 2010) have been described in areas surrounding roads, with bears selecting higher elevations and steeper slopes because they are further away from roads and, consequently, less accessible to humans (Goldstein et al., 2010;Nams et al., 2006). The impact of road networks also seems to depend on landcover types surrounding roads and periods of the bear life cycle, with higher probabilities of road crossings where roads intersect areas with dense vegetation cover offering shelter (Find'o et al., 2019;Lyons et al., 2018;Roever et al., 2010) or during hyperphagia (Fra z ckowiak et al., 2014; Stewart et al., 2013), due to the need to consume a large amount of food before hibernation. Similarly, roads have also been described as occasional attractants to brown bears as they facilitate communication (Gonz alez-Bernardo et al., 2021;Sato et al., 2014) or movement (Hill et al., 2021;Roever et al., 2010). ...

... Obvious effects such as habitat destruction and increased mortality have been documented (van der Ree et al. 2015). However, the degradation of surrounding habitat by pollution, noise and edge or barrier effects, limiting gene flow and access to food resources has also been observed (Holderegeer and Di Giulio 2010, van der Ree et al. 2015, Skuban et al. 2017. Indeed, the effects of infrastructures can affect wildlife several kilometres from their physical installation (de Jonge et al. 2022) and collectively, the ecological characteristics of large carnivores with the potential environmental impacts of human developments mean that these species can be especially sensitive to new human constructions (Rytwinski and Fahrig 2011). ...

... We used data from 12 radiocollared brown bears (seven males and five females, from 2008 to 2015) inhabiting north-central Slovakia (for further information regarding the study area, see Skuban et al., 2018). Upon capture using culvert traps, each bear was equipped with GPS-GSM collars (Vectronic Aerospace, Berlin, Germany), which were programmed to record location fixes at hourly intervals. ...

... The presence of human food in containers and landfills acts as a lure and attracts brown bears to urban spaces [68]. Therefore, people should not feed bears because they will become accustomed to receiving food [65,95], increasing the frequency of bears entering human communities simultaneously with interspecies conflicts [12,22]. Following field investigations and personal observations, we found that the management of food and household waste are the intrinsic causes of the presence of bears in Prahova Valley [33]. ...

... The major highway, which is located in the central part of the country, will likely represent the most important barrier for bear movement and dispersal, together with the natural terrain formation of the Morava River valley. Numerous studies have shown that roads (Alexander et al., 2005;Riley et al., 2006;Koreň et al., 2011;Mateo-Sánchez et al., 2014) are a major barrier for movement of wildlife, especially fenced highways. These high-volume and high-speed motorways pose a particular threat to species with large home ranges, such as brown bears, leading to a reduction in genetic exchange (McCown et al., 2009;Karamanlidis et al., 2012). ...