Characterizing the landscape compositions of urban wildlife encounters: the case of the stone marten (Martes foina), the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and the hedgehog {Erinaceus europaeus) in the Greater Paris area

摘要

As urbanization continues to expand worldwide, more and more urban areas become home to wild animals able to adapt to city life, generating a growing need for information. In the Greater Paris area, the existence of three wild mammals (the stone marten, Martes foina, the red fox, Vulpes vulpes and the hedgehog, Erinaceus europaeus) is attested. However, little is known regarding their presence. The research reported in this study aims to shed light upon their co-existence with city dwellers. Specifically, the areas where contacts between these species and the inhabitants are the most likely are studied. Gaining insight on the distribution of such areas allows for those in charge of wildlife-related issues to target where management measures may be needed the most, whether they concern biodiversity promotion initiatives or conflict mitigation actions. In this paper, we investigate the landscape compositions in which these encounters have been the most frequent using presence records. To do so, we analyzed the land use types within buffers set around contact points and applied statistical operations (correspondence analysis and hierarchical clustering) on the obtained results. Results show that while some landscape compositions attract all three species (namely areas where greenery is prevailing), others were only favored by one or two of the species.