# Anthropogenic Infrastructures Shape Brown Bear Movements in Human‐Modified Landscapes

## TL;DR

Brown bears in Europe show different movement behaviors in response to human infrastructure, depending on the region they live in.

## Contribution

This study reveals region-specific variation in brown bear movement responses to human-modified landscapes using GPS data from three European countries.

## Key findings

- Finnish bears moved faster and farther than Slovak and Romanian bears, regardless of proximity to human infrastructure.
- Romanian bears increased movement speed near human settlements, while Finnish and Slovak bears decreased theirs.
- Bears showed contrasting movement patterns near transport infrastructure depending on their geographic region.

## Abstract

In Europe, large carnivore populations have faced a history of persecution and habitat alteration, varying in magnitude across their distribution. Individual animals have developed diverse adaptations to these anthropogenic activities, in most cases to avoid them but in some cases to exploit novel resources in the human‐modified environments they inhabit. Here, we used long‐term GPS‐telemetry data from 108 brown bears
Ursus arctos
collared across three European countries – Finland, Slovakia and Romania—to assess whether the behavioural movement patterns of brown bears are consistent across their range or vary regionally in response to local environmental and anthropogenic influences. We calculated speed, movement direction and daily displacement, and used mixed‐effects models to analyse whether human infrastructure affected brown bear movement behaviour across the study areas. To examine whether the impact of these features varied by study area, and to capture contextual differences that may have affected the movement patterns of bears, we included interactions between environmental predictors and area in the regression models. Our results showed that Finnish bears exhibited consistently higher movement speeds and longer daily displacements than Slovak and Romanian bears, regardless of the proximity to roads, railways, or human settlements. In addition, in proximity to transport infrastructures, Finnish and Slovak bears increased speed, directionality and distance travelled whereas Romanian bears showed the opposite pattern. Conversely, near human settlements, Romanian bears showed higher speeds and less tortuous movements, whereas Finnish and Slovak bears reduced their speed and daily displacements. These contrasting responses suggest that bear movements in multi‐use, human‐modified landscapes are shaped by complex interactions between animal needs and local environmental conditions.

Human activities are major drivers of changes in animal behaviour, resulting in diverse spatial and temporal activity patterns across species. In this study, we analysed telemetry data from brown bears in Finland, Slovakia and Romania, to compare how human infrastructure influences their movement behaviour. The distinct movement patterns observed across the study areas underscores the importance of context‐specific factors in shaping the movement decisions of this large carnivore.