Habitat loss, together with less obvious land-use changes such as intensified farming practice, can have significant adverse impacts on biodiversity. An important factor in determining the ability of species to cope with such changes is their potential to sustain a populations network by dispersal across the landscape. Habitat quality and structure are particularly important for surface-dwelling species with low dispersal abilities, such as amphibians. To assess this ecological function, ponds in a coastal and typically rural area of northern France were surveyed for amphibians in 1974, 1992 and 2011. These repeated surveys yielded different outcomes for different species groups. Three rare species persisted in more or less specialized habitat types. Two moderately common species declined, but kept strongholds in coastal dunes and associated marshes. Five common species with broad ecological niches remained equally widespread. The Northern crested newt declined markedly and the Midwife toad declined dramatically, as did their breeding habitats in vegetated ponds and cattle drinking troughs. One species, the Moor frog, may have gone locally extinct. A model of relative resistance to amphibian dispersal was created for different landscape types, on a scale from 0 (low resistance) to 1 (high resistance). This generated values of 0.23 for pasture, 0.72 for arable and 0.98 for urban and transport. As pasture declined in the study area, while arable and urban/transport infrastructure increased, amphibian dispersal became more difficult. However, dispersal paths proved difficult to evaluate in a patchy landscape like the one surveyed, due to a paucity of spatial 123Biodivers Conserv (2017) 26:1411-1430 DOI 10.1007/s10531-017-1307 signal. Pond loss is a more tractable reason for the observed amphibian species decline than is the quality of intervening terrestrial habitat matrix. In 2011, 22 newly created ponds had species richness in line with pre-existing ponds and this will have counteracted a dwindling metapopulation structure, indicating that habitat creation/restoration can play a valuable role in conservation. The colonization of new ponds may also prove more informative for gauging the potential for amphibian dispersal in the landscape than the preceding decline.

Brown bear movement patterns are driven by their opportunistic feeding behaviour, with their complex life history and seasonality playing an important role in habitat selection. Within a large unfragmented forest habitats persisting over decades in the Romanian Carpathians and a prohibitive hunting management during 40 years of communist centralised game management, information about brown bear movements and spatial ecology is lacking. Using data obtained from 13 brown bears fitted with GPS telemetry collars, we estimated home ranges and core activity areas and we investigated the daily, seasonal and altitudinal movements of brown bears in the Eastern Romanian Carpathians and surrounding high hills. The median MCP95% home ranges of brown bears was 629.92 km 2 and the median size of core activity areas (estimated as 50% kernel density) was 36.37 km 2 , with no significant differences between males and females. The mean daily distance travelled, measured as daily displacement length, was 1818 m and an analysis of seasonal movements indicated significant differences between seasons (greatest movements during the Hyperphagia season). The GPS-collared brown bears travelled between a minimum altitude measured at ~234 m and a maximum at ~1634 m. Analysing the spatial overlap between the estimated home range and the game management units (GMU) limits, we obtained a median number of 8 GMUs overlapping totally or partially with estimated home range polygons. Our study, using GPS telemetry, highlights the RESEARCH ARTICLE Launched to accelerate biodiversity conservation A peer-reviewed open-access journalIoan Mihai Pop et al. / Nature Conservation 26: 15-31 (2018) 16 complex spatial ecology of the brown bear in the Romanian Carpathians, with larger home range size than those estimated in other European brown bear populations and with daily movements that vary by season and within a large altitude range. Our study supports the implementation of brown bear monitoring at a regional scale, rather than focusing on county level GMUs as the monitoring unit.

Recovery of large carnivores in the European human‐dominated landscapes has sparked a debate regarding the optimal landscape conditions in which carnivores can thrive and coexist with humans. Here, we use brown bears Ursus arctos in the Romanian Carpathians to test and develop a framework for identifying habitat conservation priorities based on a novel integration of resource selection functions, home‐range data and systematic conservation planning. We used a comprehensive GPS telemetry dataset from 18 individuals to (1) calculate sex‐specific seasonal home ranges and (2) characterize population‐level habitat selection. We then used systematic conservation planning software Zonation to identify contiguous areas of high conservation value for males and females using Manly's habitat selection ratios as weights for habitat layers, and home‐range information as a smoothing parameter for habitat connectivity. Home ranges were smallest during winter (median [IQR] for November–February: 28.2 km2 [9.8–42.4]), and largest during the intense‐feeding season (September–November: 127.3 km2 [62.2–288.5]), with males having larger home ranges across all seasons. Females consistently selected for mixed forest habitat during all seasons. Males selected mixed forest during winter; then switched to a rather generalist approach, selecting regenerating forest and mixed and coniferous forests during low‐feeding/reproduction and wild berries seasons. We identified large tracts of forest habitat (~14% of the landscape) that was selected across all seasons as key habitats for brown bear conservation in the Romanian Carpathians. Spatially, high‐value winter habitat was the most dissimilar for both males and females, suggesting that conservation actions should focus on protecting contiguous denning habitat. These key findings can inform the management and conservation of the brown bear population in the Romanian Carpathians by identifying critical intervention areas for maintaining landscape connectivity, enable transboundary management and contribute to maintaining Favourable Conservation Status, an important target of European Union Strategy for Biodiversity.

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