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Wildlife population changes across Eastern Europe after the collapse of socialism
Corresponding Author
Eugenia V Bragina
SILVIS Lab, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI
[email protected]Search for more papers by this authorAnthony R Ives
Department of Integrative Biology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI
Search for more papers by this authorAnna M Pidgeon
SILVIS Lab, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI
Search for more papers by this authorLinas Balčiauskas
Laboratory of Mammalian Ecology, Nature Research Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania
Search for more papers by this authorSándor Csányi
Szent István University, Institute for Wildlife Conservation, Gödöllő, Hungary
Search for more papers by this authorPavlo Khoyetskyy
National University of Forestry of Ukraine, Lviv, Ukraine
Search for more papers by this authorKatarina Kysucká
Institute of Landscape Ecology SAS, Nitra, Slovak Republic
Search for more papers by this authorJuraj Lieskovsky
Institute of Landscape Ecology SAS, Nitra, Slovak Republic
Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
Search for more papers by this authorJanis Ozolins
Latvian State Forest Research Institute SILAVA, Salaspils, Latvia
Search for more papers by this authorTiit Randveer
Estonian University of Life Sciences, Tartu, Estonia
Search for more papers by this authorPřemysl Štych
Department of Applied Geoinformatics and Cartography, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic
Search for more papers by this authorAnatoliy Volokh
Tavria State Agrotechnological University, Melitopol, Ukraine
Search for more papers by this authorChavdar Zhelev
National Station for Wildlife Management, Biology and Game Diseases, Executive Forest Agency, Ministry of Agriculture and Foods, Sofia, Bulgaria
Search for more papers by this authorElzbieta Ziółkowska
Department of GIS, Cartography and Remote Sensing, Institute of Geography and Spatial Management, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
Search for more papers by this authorVolker C Radeloff
SILVIS Lab, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Eugenia V Bragina
SILVIS Lab, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI
[email protected]Search for more papers by this authorAnthony R Ives
Department of Integrative Biology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI
Search for more papers by this authorAnna M Pidgeon
SILVIS Lab, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI
Search for more papers by this authorLinas Balčiauskas
Laboratory of Mammalian Ecology, Nature Research Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania
Search for more papers by this authorSándor Csányi
Szent István University, Institute for Wildlife Conservation, Gödöllő, Hungary
Search for more papers by this authorPavlo Khoyetskyy
National University of Forestry of Ukraine, Lviv, Ukraine
Search for more papers by this authorKatarina Kysucká
Institute of Landscape Ecology SAS, Nitra, Slovak Republic
Search for more papers by this authorJuraj Lieskovsky
Institute of Landscape Ecology SAS, Nitra, Slovak Republic
Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
Search for more papers by this authorJanis Ozolins
Latvian State Forest Research Institute SILAVA, Salaspils, Latvia
Search for more papers by this authorTiit Randveer
Estonian University of Life Sciences, Tartu, Estonia
Search for more papers by this authorPřemysl Štych
Department of Applied Geoinformatics and Cartography, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic
Search for more papers by this authorAnatoliy Volokh
Tavria State Agrotechnological University, Melitopol, Ukraine
Search for more papers by this authorChavdar Zhelev
National Station for Wildlife Management, Biology and Game Diseases, Executive Forest Agency, Ministry of Agriculture and Foods, Sofia, Bulgaria
Search for more papers by this authorElzbieta Ziółkowska
Department of GIS, Cartography and Remote Sensing, Institute of Geography and Spatial Management, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
Search for more papers by this authorVolker C Radeloff
SILVIS Lab, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI
Search for more papers by this authorAbstract
When political regimes fall, economic conditions change and wildlife protection can be undermined. Eastern European countries experienced turmoil following the collapse of socialism in the early 1990s, raising the question of how wildlife was affected. We show that the aftermath of the collapse changed the population growth rates of various wildlife taxa. We analyzed populations of moose (Alces alces), wild boar (Sus scrofa), red deer (Cervus elaphus), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), brown bear (Ursus arctos), Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), and gray wolf (Canis lupus) in nine countries. Population growth rates changed in 32 out of 49 time series. In the countries that reformed slowly, many species exhibited rapid population declines, and population growth rates changed in 83% of the time series. In contrast, in countries with fast post-socialism reforms, many populations increased rapidly, and growth rates changed in only 48% of time series. Our results suggest that the direction and frequency of the changes were associated with socioeconomic conditions, and that wildlife populations can be greatly affected by socioeconomic upheavals.
Supporting Information
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