Reliable methods for tracking changes in population abundance are crucial for effective wildlife management. We monitored a population of Alpine marmots ( Marmota marmota ) in Stelvio National Park (Italian Alps) over an 8-year period, from 2017 to 2024. Absolute abundance estimates were obtained by analyzing 180 individual capture histories using robust-design CMR models. Each year, six Independent Double Observer (IDO) sessi...

Biotic interactions are expected to influence species' responses to global changes, but they are rarely considered across broad spatial extents. Abiotic factors are thought to operate at larger spatial scales, while biotic factors, such as species interactions, are considered more important at local scales within communities, in part because of the knowledge gap on species interactions at large spatial scales (i.e., the Eltoni...

Due to particular vulnerabilities and environmental constraints, Alpine faunas are exposed to significant threats from climate change. However, baseline diversity and distribution data to monitor the trends of key arthropod groups are often scarce. Ants are highly diversified and key ecological actors across terrestrial ecosystems, including mountain ranges. We investigated ant diversity and distribution in the Southern Europe...

Microhabitat utilisation holds a pivotal role in shaping a species’ ecological dynamics and stands as a crucial concern for effective conservation strategies. Despite its critical importance, microhabitat use has frequently been addressed as static, centering on microhabitat preference. Yet, a dynamic microhabitat use that allows individuals to adjust to fine-scale spatio-temporal prey fluctuations, becomes imperative for spec...

A scientifically informed approach to decision-making is key to ensuring the sustainable management of ecosystems, especially in the light of increasing human pressure on habitats and species. Protected areas, with their long-term institutional mandate for biodiversity conservation, play an important role as data providers, for example, through the long-term monitoring of natural resources. However, poor data management often...

The wolf ( Canis lupus ) is among the most controversial of wildlife species. Abundance estimates are required to inform public debate and policy decisions, but obtaining them at biologically relevant scales is challenging. We developed a system for comprehensive population estimation across the Italian alpine region (100,000 km 2 ), involving 1513 trained operators representing 160 institutions. This extensive network allowed...

Human activity and associated landscape modifications alter the movements of animals with consequences for populations and ecosystems worldwide. Species performing long‐distance movements are thought to be particularly sensitive to human impact. Despite the increasing anthropogenic pressure, it remains challenging to understand and predict animals' responses to human activity. Here we address this knowledge gap using 1206 Glob...

Fecal cortisol metabolites (FCMs) are widely used to track stress responses in wildlife and captive species. Rules of thumb suggest that samples should be collected as soon as possible after defecation, to avoid decay of FCMs. To date, however, only a few studies investigated the stability of defecated FCMs over time, and most of them were conducted in controlled laboratory conditions. Here, we investigated the stability of FC...

Reliable and cost-effective monitoring tools to track population size over time are of key importance for wildlife management and conservation. Deterministic cohort analysis may be used to this aim, especially in hunted populations, but it requires that all mortality events are recorded and that individual age at death is known exactly. In this study, we investigated the reliability of cohort analysis as a relative index to tr...

The forage maturation hypothesis (FMH) states that energy intake for ungulates is maximised when forage biomass is at intermediate levels. Nevertheless, metabolic allometry and different digestive systems suggest that resource selection should vary across ungulate species. By combining GPS relocations with remotely sensed data on forage characteristics and surface water, we quantified the effect of body size and digestive syst...

Aim To assess how species traits modulate the responses of carabids to elevational gradients, and how consistent these relationships are across different Alpine regions. Location Italian Alps. Taxon Coleoptera, Carabidae (ground beetles). Methods Carabid communities were sampled using pitfall traps along elevational gradients (697–2,840 m) in 416 study sites comprising a range of habitat types. The probability of carabid occur...