The Attractiveness of Landscape Segments in Terms of Brown Bear (Ursus arctos) Occurrence

Methods of the research and monitoring of the brown bear populations are standardized and used by the scientific public, but no general methodology exists to determine which environmental conditions are attractive to brown bears in the current human-influenced landscape. For this reason, the authors propose a methodology that evaluates the attractiveness of landscape segments for the brown bear occurrence and compares the attractiveness of important segments with that of anthropogenically affected landscape segments. In terms of the attractiveness assessment of landscape segments for the brown bear occurrence, the following indices were evaluated: Landscape Segment Significance Index (I1), Occurrence Index (I2), Food Supply Index (I3), Index of Nature Conservation and Landscape Connectivity (I4) and Anthropogenic Index (I5). These indices consider the ecological demands of the brown bear as well as the impacts of human activities and landscape changes. The attractiveness assessment (AA) indicates whether the area provides favourable conditions for the occurrence of brown bears.