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Humans do matter: determinants of red fox (Vulpes vulpes) presence in a western Mediterranean landscape

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Abstract

Habitat loss, due to landscape changes induced by human activities, is considered one of the main drivers of biodiversity decline. Thus, understanding how these changes affect top trophic-level species is essential to develop effective conservation strategy measures to overcome this problem. Mesocarnivores, as higher trophic-level species with crucial roles in ecosystem functioning, are a pivotal functional group in such strategies. Generalist mesocarnivores, such as the red fox (Vulpes vulpes), are excellent models to study species ecological adaption to landscapes moulded by humans. Using generalised linear mixed model (GLMM), we aim to understand how the landscape context affects the presence of this generalist species, in a Mediterranean ecosystem (northeastern Portugal) characterised by a combination of natural areas and traditional agricultural land uses. Based on scats’ distribution, we generated distribution models to test different ecological hypotheses—anthropic disturbance factors, altitude and land-cover patterns. According to our results, red foxes seem to have two distinct strategies: in forest-dominated areas, human activities have a negative effect (disturbance); in areas with a low percentage of forests, agriculture patches and the proximity to urban areas are the main drivers determining its presence, with a positive influence (food availability). Our results confirm the opportunistic character of this species and its high degree of adaptation. Further, the outcome also reveals that landscape context influences the detected pattern. Consequently, considering that populations of the same species are constrained by the same factors, independently of the landscape composition, will affect the effectiveness of management measures that will not account for landscape context effects.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to the fact that these are part of a major project that is under a confidentiality agreement until the project is finished but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. After the end of the project, data will be included and available at the ‘Atlas of Portuguese mammals’ website database: http://atlas-mamiferos.uevora.pt/index.php/downloads/.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to all the people and institutions that provided valuable assistance, particularly Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas (ICNF).

Funding

Co-author Eduardo Ferreira was supported by a post-doctoral grant from FCT (Program POPHQREN, ref.: SFRH/BPD/72895/2010). We would like to thank the financial support from the University of Aveiro (Department of Biology), to CESAM (UID/AMB/50017), the FCT/MEC through national funds and the co-funding by the FEDER, within the PT2020 Partnership Agreement and Compete 2020.

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  1. Departamento de Biologia & CESAM, Universidade de Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193, Aveiro, Portugal

    Marta Alexandre, Dário Hipólito, Eduardo Ferreira, Carlos Fonseca & Luís Miguel Rosalino

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  1. Marta Alexandre
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  2. Dário Hipólito
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  3. Eduardo Ferreira
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  4. Carlos Fonseca
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  5. Luís Miguel Rosalino
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Correspondence to Luís Miguel Rosalino.

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Alexandre, M., Hipólito, D., Ferreira, E. et al. Humans do matter: determinants of red fox (Vulpes vulpes) presence in a western Mediterranean landscape. Mamm Res 65, 203–214 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13364-019-00449-y

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