Spatiotemporal Population Growth Patterns and Interactions Among Sympatric Central European Mesocarnivores.

Hanna Bijl, Gergely Schally, Miklós Heltai, Mihály Márton, Szilvia Bőti, Sándor Csányi

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Article in Life (Basel, Switzerland), 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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6 authors.

Hanna BijlDepartment of Wildlife Biology and Management, Institute for Wildlife Management and Nature Conservation, Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Páter Károly Str. 1, H-2100 Gödöllő, Hungary.ORCID 0000-0003-1585-2890

Gergely SchallyDepartment of Wildlife Biology and Management, Institute for Wildlife Management and Nature Conservation, Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Páter Károly Str. 1, H-2100 Gödöllő, Hungary.ORCID 0000-0002-3289-1843

Miklós HeltaiDepartment of Wildlife Biology and Management, Institute for Wildlife Management and Nature Conservation, Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Páter Károly Str. 1, H-2100 Gödöllő, Hungary.ORCID 0000-0002-8993-818X

Mihály MártonDepartment of Wildlife Biology and Management, Institute for Wildlife Management and Nature Conservation, Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Páter Károly Str. 1, H-2100 Gödöllő, Hungary.

Szilvia BőtiDepartment of Wildlife Biology and Management, Institute for Wildlife Management and Nature Conservation, Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Páter Károly Str. 1, H-2100 Gödöllő, Hungary.

Sándor CsányiDepartment of Wildlife Biology and Management, Institute for Wildlife Management and Nature Conservation, Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Páter Károly Str. 1, H-2100 Gödöllő, Hungary.ORCID 0000-0001-7757-7156

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Understanding interactions among sympatric mesocarnivore populations is essential for making sound management decisions. The golden jackal has rapidly expanded in Europe, raising questions about its potential intraguild effects. Using long-term hunting bag data (1997-2024) from Hungary, we investigated spatiotemporal population trends of the European badger, red fox, and golden jackal. We examined pairwise associations in their annual growth rates. Generalised additive models and Pearson correlation analyses revealed strong species-specific temporal and spatial trends and weak to moderate positive relationships among the species' population growth rates at the national scale and within regions of high jackal population density. We found no evidence of jackal suppression of foxes or badgers. Additionally, badgers showed the strongest positive association with fox populations. Our large-scale analyses suggest that these mesocarnivores coexist without substantial competitive interference, likely due to local spatial heterogeneity and fine-scale temporal partitioning that are not detectable in annual, broad-scale (national) data. These findings highlight the importance of integrating broad-scale population data with finer-scale behavioural studies to better understand coexistence mechanisms in expanding mesocarnivore assemblages.

Indexed as

coexistenceco-occurrenceinterference interactionsinterspecific competitionmesopredators

Identifiers

PMID41752897

DOI10.3390/life16020261

PMCPMC12941889

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