Wildlife & Conservation at Uni Freiburg

We were honoured to present our EUROLYNX work at the Snow Leopard Foundation — thank you for the invite!

#EUROLYNX is an open collaborative network of 54 research groups studying Eurasian lynx across Europe.

Watch the recorded webinar here: snowleopardnetwork.org/2026/02/15/e...

Graphical depiction of workflow summarizing sample selection and two objectives: (I) investigating sex-specific excursion characteristics and (II) examining factors shaping excursions using generalized linear mixed models. Figure 1 from the paper: Extra-territorial excursions of Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) during the mating season across Europe

PhD student Yutong posing together with a statue of a metal Lynx (her research species for her PhD) outside in the Bavarian Forest National Park

First PhD paper from Yutong Liang on excursions of Eurasian #lynx during the mating season!🐱

Using data from 125 lynx across Europe, they found that extra-territorial mating excursions are a male-biased strategy, indicating active mate-searching🐈💕🐈

📰 doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

#Eurolynx #euromammals

Graphical abstract for the paper "Experimental evidence for large carnivore risk cues reducing deer browsing intensity in a temperate forest"

New lab paper out: experimental evidence for large carnivore risk cues reducing deer browsing intensity in a temperate forest🌳

🦌Deer modified their behaviour in response to large carnivore scent cues, with more pronounced effects in lynx treatments🐾

📎Full paper here: doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Results figure showing the temporal evolution of the harvests of wild ungulates in our entire study area: total number of harvested individuals (left pannel) and relative change since 1975 (right pannel).

New research out on trends of ungulate species in Europe 🐗

Annual hunting bags of roe deer, red deer, wild boar, fallow deer, mouflon, northern chamois & moose were used to identify temporal trends and evaluate the social/environmental drivers of their relative abundances.
📄 doi.org/10.1007/s133...

graphical abstract of paper

🦌New paper on environmental pollutants in red and fallow deer samples from eight National Parks in Germany.

⚠️The findings show that deer populations in national parks are susceptible to widespread contamination, despite their focus on nature conservation.

📃 Read more here: doi.org/10.1016/j.sc...

UNKRAUT: Wölfe im Nationalpark · Gut für die Natur? - hier anschauen Wölfe wurden im 19. Jahrhundert unerbittlich verfolgt. Im Bayerischen Wald ist der letzte Wolf im Jahr 1848 erlegt worden. 170 Jahre später passiert etwas, was sich Wissenschaftler nicht hätten träume...

🐺The Interreg wolf project in the Bavarian Forest & Šumava National Park got some air time on TV! 📽️

📺 For any german speakers, you can find the short documentary here: www.ardmediathek.de/video/Y3JpZD...

PhD position in bioacoustics, statistics, and AI for forest biodiversity | slu.se SLU - Science and Education for Sustainable Life

🎓PhD position in bioacoustics, statistics, and AI for forest biodiversity in Sweden! 🌲

🔊🐦If you have a strong interest in wildlife conservation technology, specifically the use of passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) and AI then go check it out here:
www.slu.se/en/about-slu...

The picture shows a figure from the paper depicting the overview of the study area and the winter enclosures that were included in the study. The study area is located in the Bohemian Forest, along the CzechGerman border, and consists of three administrative sub-areas: State Forest of Neureichenau (SFNR, Germany), ˇ Sumava National Park (SNP, Czech Republic) and Bavarian Forest National Park (BFNP, Germany). Three types of winter enclosure treatments were established: regular management(orange), opened earlier (blue), and open fences (green). The non-hunting area is hatched in red.

New Paper alert! 🦌
Here we looked at the effects of opening winter enclosures on red deer movement and local browsing pressure. Winter home ranges increased six times when fences were opened, but browsing pressure decreased near open fences enclosures.🌱

📜Read more here: doi.org/10.1016/j.fo...

The image shows a results figure from the linked paper of the prediction of the temporal dynamics of the event rate (number of events per hour) after a recreation event for A) red deer, B) roe deer, C) wild boar and D) red fox in the non-hunting (top) and hunting (bottom) zones.

Hot off the press!🔥
How does human recreation & hunting affect wildlife?🥾🦌

Increased hunting intensity led to a significantly increasing avoidance of recreational activities by all species, independent of whether they were subjected to hunting or not!
📰 doi.org/10.1016/j.ge...

Graphical Abstract of paper. Abstract: Roads are a major driver of habitat fragmentation, creating mosaic-structured landscapes where some species can adapt, and others struggle to survive. In increasingly fragmented landscapes, highly mobile species, including mammalian carnivores, are frequently exposed to roads as they move between habitat patches to access resources such as shelter and prey. However, understanding the factors influencing carnivores' road mortality in human-modified landscapes remains limited, partly due to a lack of data at broad spatial scales. Yet, the European wildcat (Felis silvestris) serves as an ideal model species to examine carnivore-vehicle collision risk across diverse environmental conditions, as it occupies large home ranges in diverse habitats. We conducted the first national-scale assessment of wildcat-vehicle collisions, applying a use-availability framework to 827 recorded collisions across Germany. Our study reveals a complex interplay of factors influencing wildcat road mortality in heavily fragmented and heterogeneous landscapes. The highest collision risk occurred on roads with intermediate to high expected traffic volumes, posted speed, and widths. Collision risk was higher in favourable habitats characterised by minimal built-up areas and low road density. The risk peaked in areas with moderate to dense tree cover and increased with higher habitat diversity, corresponding to areas where both refuge and hunting grounds occur. Using our model, we mapped wildcat-vehicle collision risk across Germany's road network, validating that existing mitigation measures are well placed and highlighting road sections where further intervention is needed to support the persistence of wildcat populations.

Important new paper on #wildcat vehicle collisions!🐈

A use-availability model mapped collision risk across Germany's roads, showing that existing mitigation measures are well placed, but more roads require intervention to support wildcat populations.🚗

📖 Read more here: doi.org/10.1016/j.je...

Impact of hunting modality on social contacts in wild boar populations across Europe Our study showcases how hunting disturbance influences social contact rates in a group-living wild mammal. Along with other biotic and abiotic drivers, hunting modality plays a significant role in sh...

How does hunting disturbance influences social contact rates in a group-living wild mammal?🐗

New paper from #euromammals on wild boar behaviour shows that hunting modality plays a significant role in shaping intra-group, but not inter-group, contacts.
📄Read more here: doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Our first in-person KI-Recover team meeting in Sankt Oswald! 🌲✨
We were thrilled by the collaborative energy, fresh ideas, and strong alignment during the workshop. The field excursion was a highlight. Excited for what’s next!

Paper alert!🛰️🥬 We show that thermal infrared hyperspectral data can predict LAI with high accuracy using PLSR & neural nets! Key wavebands (8.1–10.3 μm) work across sensors & conditions - boosting future satellite missions like LandsatNext & CopernicusLSTM doi.org/10.3390/rs17...

Temporal displacement of the mammal community in a protected area due to hunting and recreational activities Recreation (i.e., hiking and biking) and hunting can occur simultaneously in time and space, and both sources of disturbance affect wildlife behavior, leading to reactions resembling anti-predator be...

🔥Hot off the press:
We assessed intensities of hunting and recreation on the temporal activity of red & roe deer, wild boar, red fox, and lynx in the Bavarian Forest National Park, finding that hunting is a strong driver behind wildlife temporal behavior!

📄Read more here: doi.org/10.1002/eap....

Red deer individual landscapes of fear in response to human recreation We assessed the individual responses of red deer towards recreational activities in the Bavarian Forest National Park, using GPS-telemetry data and modelle

New Paper Altert! 📄
Red deer individual landscapes of fear in response
to human recreation: doi.org/10.1093/behe...

🦌 Population patterns in red deer behaviour masked strong between-individual variation in plasticity to recreational disturbance. 🥾🚶

Group picture of the people attending the 2025 EUROwildcat meeting.

This year’s EUROwildcat workshop was held in the beautiful town of Melk, in Austria’s scenic Wachau region. Around 50 participants attended, engaging in many fruitful discussions on wildcat conservation and new research ideas. Learn more about EUROwildcat: euromammals.org/eurowildcat/

System diagram illustrating the main components of the deadtrees.earth platform and their interactions. Users can search and filter the database, visualize and download orthophotos, and explore a large-scale mortality map. The processing server generates Cloud Optimized GeoTIFFs (COGs) by pulling GeoTIFF files and pushing processed COGs to the storage server.

Have you heard of deadtrees.earth? 🌳

🌲This community-sourced and rigorously curated dataset can serve as a comprehensive reference dataset to uncover tree mortality patterns from local to global scales!

📰Read more about it in our new paper: doi.org/10.1016/j.rs...

Group picture of attendees of the eurolynx meeting 2025 in Belgium Semois Valley National Park, sitting on a green field and smiling towards the camera.

This month we visited the new Belgium national park in the Semois Valley who hosted an inspiring and fun meeting of the #EUROlynx network! Around 100 attendees enjoyed three packed days of talks and an excursion in this beautiful region, with plenty of new ideas for research coming up too! 🐈🐾

Members from the research group in the Bavarian Forest National Park pose together for a group picture

Members from the research group in the Bavarian Forest National Park pose together for a group picture

This week we are sad to say goodbye to our placement PhD student Yuanyuan from China, who has stayed with us for one year. Her work focuses on investigating reintroduction success in crested ibis in China. 🪶
It was a pleasure having you here and we wish you all the best! 💚

Map showing th distribution of the standardized GPS data (green circles), of den sites (orange triangles) used for the analysis of movement patterns and den use of female lynx, and of field-checked kill sites and corresponding dens (blue squares) used to analyse kill site distribution in relation to the den.

A new #EUROLYNX paper out on variability in the movement and foraging behaviour of female Eurasian #lynx during the denning season across Europe! 🐈

🐾Movement metrics and kill-to-den distances were evaluated using GPS data from two climatic regions.
📄Read more here: doi.org/10.1002/oik....

Illustration of two moose with GPS-collars and their process of habitat selection.

GPS data from 392 moose in Sweden shows they prefer deciduous & young #forests, avoid roads, and select large, connected patches. Forest management should prioritize preserving and connecting these habitats to support #wildlife and biodiversity. 🌲🦌 doi.org/10.1016/j.fo...

group photo of lab members attending the conference

photos of lab members presenting at the conference

photos of lab members presenting at the conference

photos of lab members presenting at the conference

Last week, we had the pleasure of presenting a range of our ongoing lab research at the @int-wildcongress.bsky.social in Lillehammer Norway! 🌍

Topics included studies on camera traps, wild boar, wolves, red deer, browsing, lynx, trophic cascades, ticks & human wildlife interactions! 📸🐗🐺🦌🌲🐈🦊🪲🌱

New imaging tech maps plant phenolics in #forests from air and space, improving ecosystem and plant health monitoring! 🌿 #remotesensingtechnology #remotesensing

Have a look at our study on this topic: doi.org/10.1016/j.rs...

Figure showing the distribution of possbile movement distances in a mark-recapture experiment of Necrodes littoralis in the Bavarian Forest National Park.

Have you seen this paper on the dispersal ability of the carrion beetle Necrodes littoralis? 🪲

Some beetles were recaptured at distances over 30 km! These results have important implications for conservation efforts and for preventing disease spread from carcasses.

doi.org/10.1111/jen....

Anthropization impacts the selection of resting sites and their centrality in movement networks: wild boar across Europe as an example For many animal species, resting and activity happen at distinct sites. As animals are limited in how far they can travel between resting and foraging sites, the spatial layout of those sites may con...

New research on wild boar resting sites in Europe! 🐗

In anthropized landscapes, where resting sites are sometimes a limiting resource for many animals, their spatial layout may play an often unnoticed yet important role in allowing animal movements across the landscape.🌳

doi.org/10.1002/oik....

PhD-project | slu.se SLU - Science and Education for Sustainable Life

Are you interested in passive acoustic monitoring? Do you want to learn more about Broadleafification?

Why not apply at SLU in Umeå, Sweden for a PhD position where you will study vocalizing species like birds, bats and beetles.

Deadline: 22.09.2025
URL: www.slu.se/en/about-slu...

Graphical abstract of the research paper

New paper on assessing macroinvertebrate species composition in forest streams using LiDAR data 🌲

This highlights the utility of LiDAR data for stream assessment, offering a novel approach to understanding
stream-catchment interactions in forested landscapes.

🔍Read more doi.org/10.1016/j.ec...

Camera traps and deep learning enable efficient large‐scale density estimation of wildlife in temperate forest ecosystems We tested the effect of using a readily available deep learning algorithm for animal species classification on the population density estimates of eight wild mammal species in 10 protected areas (Da)...

Our new research demonstrates how AI can reduce the time needed for classification of camera trap images. 📸

Using deep learning, automated analysis achieves 90% accuracy in identifying European wildlife, streamlining population monitoring across Germany. 🦊🐗

📜Read more: doi.org/10.1002/rse2...

Density-dependent network structuring within and across wild animal systems - Nature Ecology & Evolution The number of individuals in a given space influences animal interactions and network dynamics. Here the authors identify general rules underlying density dependence in animal networks and reveal some...

Check out this new paper: Higher population density boosts individual connectivity in animal networks.

Spatial links grow more than social ones at high densities, affecting ecological processes.

These rules can help predict animal network structures. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

New study on early detection of bark beetle infestation using remote sensing! 🌲🪲🛰️

Forest vitality from healthy to bark beetle-affected states can be mapped, supporting early intervention strategies and continuous cost-effective monitoring of forest health from space!
📃 www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/16...