Habitat selection by European badgers at multiple spatial scales in Portuguese Mediterranean ecosystems

摘要: Different habitat features can limit animal populations at different spatial scales. We examined selection by Eurasian badger in a montado landscape southern Portugal four scales: core area (1 km2), home range (4 km2), social group territory (25 km2), and local population (100 km2). Our goals were to identify important habitats for conservation each scale (cell size) using candidate variables shown be previous research. As expected, across all scales, occurrence was consistently strongly correlated with dominance of cork oak deciduous woodlands, badgers seemed avoid cultivated fields. Contrary expectation, monocultures conifers contributed positively detection. The predictive ability the models poor probably owing our inability include factors such as food, competitors, predators, undercover vegetation, roads. Nonetheless, illustrate importance montado, an ancient human-modified ecosystem that is threatened current European Union agricultural conversion policies.