Environmental variability across space and time drives the recolonization pattern of a historically persecuted large carnivore

Significance Across Europe and North America, some large carnivore species are recovering their former ranges. The spatial and temporal dynamics of this recovery are still poorly understood. We used nine years of transnational noninvasive genetic sampling to quantify temporal changes in the drivers of density of a recovering wolverine Gulo gulo population across the Scandinavian Peninsula. We provide pervasive evidence for successful expansion of the wolverine population from the refuge-like alpine range into boreal forest, which was previously considered suboptimal habitat for wolverines in Scandinavia. The ongoing recovery of the Scandinavian wolverine demonstrates that coexistence of apex predators with humans on multiuse landscapes is possible.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

• Publication date

  2025-01-27

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1073/pnas.2401679122PMID 39869793PMCID 11804516
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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