Deer density drives habitat use of establishing wolves in the Western European Alps

摘要: 1. The return of top carnivores to their historical range triggers conflicts with the interests different stakeholder groups. Anticipating such is key appropriate conservation management, which calls for reliable spatial predictions future carnivore occurrence. Previous models have assessed general habitat suitability wolves, but the factors driving settlement dispersing individuals remain ill-understood. In particular, little attention has been paid role prey availability in recolonization process. 2. High resolution and area-wide relative densities wolf's main ungulate species (red deer, roe deer chamois) were from snow-track surveys modelled along wolf presence data other environmental descriptors identify drivers selection re-establishing wolves Western European Alps. 3. Prey abundance was estimated minimum number recorded snow-tracks two hundred eighteen 1-km transects surveyed twice a year during four successive winters (2012/2013–2015/2016). Abundance estimates per transect, corrected species-specific detection probabilities averaged across winters, used model density biomass. 4. Confirmed observations same develop spatially explicit establishing based on our supply topography, landuse climate. 5. Detection-corrected abundances densities varied considerably space (0–2.8, 1.3–4.5 0–6.3 50 ha red roe deer chamois respectively; 1.3–11.65 pooled), while total predicted biomass ranged 23 304 kg ha. 6. Red most important factor explaining occurrence (31% contribution), followed by (22%), winter precipitation (19%) game reserves (16%), showing that food supply, especially as profitable Alps, driver phase. 7. Synthesis applications. We demonstrate crucial importance including accurate, fine-grained information about predicting recolonization patterns thus anticipating areas potential human–wildlife conflicts where preventive measures should be prioritized.