Klaus Hackländer

University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna | boku · Institute of Wildlife Biology and Game Management

Increasing numbers of wild ungulates in human-dominated landscapes in Europe could lead to negative effects, such as damages to forests through browsing. To prevent those effects and, thus, mitigate wildlife-based conflicts while ensuring viable ungulate populations, sustainable management is required. Roe deer, as the most abundant cervid species...

As a glacial relict species, mountain hares are adapted to cold and snowy conditions. Conversely, European hares originate from the grasslands of the Middle East and spread from there throughout low-lying agricultural areas of Europe. Mountain hares and European hares generally occur allopatrically, however, sympatry occurs in some areas. In sympat...

Wolf populations are recovering and expanding across Europe, causing conflicts with livestock owners. Here we compiled incident-based livestock damage data across 21 countries for the years 2018, 2019 and 2020, during which 39,262 wolf-caused incidents were reported from 470 administrative regions. We found substantial regional variation in all asp...

Zusammenfassung Feldhasen sind auf reich strukturierte Offenlandflächen angewiesen, die ganzjährige Deckung und Äsung bieten. In derartigen Lebensräumen wird die Zuwachsrate der Population durch negative Effekte der Prädation, der ungünstigen Witterung oder von Krankheiten weniger stark beeinflusst. Zur Erhöhung der Feldhasendichte ist daher vor al...

In many regions worldwide, effective wildlife management in human-dominated landscapes is important due to increasing numbers of wild ungulates. This is especially true in mountain ranges like the European Alps, where damages to forests caused by wild ungulates not only lead to economic losses but also threaten the integrity and functionality of ot...

Wolf populations are recovering and expanding across Europe, causing conflicts with livestock owners. To mitigate these conflicts and reduce livestock damages, authorities spend considerable resources to compensate damages, support damage prevention measures, and manage wolf populations. However, the effectiveness of these measures remains largely...

Anhand von Bewegungsdaten soll das Raum – Zeit – Verhalten des Rotfuchses im ländlichen Raum analysiert werden, um Rückschlüsse auf die soziale Organisation der Rotfüchse im ländlichen Raum zu schließen. Fokus liegt auf der Abwanderungs-, sowie der Paarungs- und Jungenaufzuchtszeit. Das gewonnene Verständnis zeigt die Raum-Zeit-Nutzung zu spezifisc...

Durch die Ausweitung des globalen Straßen- und Transportnetzwerkes wurde die Durchlässigkeit der Landschaft für viele verschiedene Taxa verringert. Dies führt in weiterer Folge auch zu verstärkten Konflikten über Huftieren und erfordert eine Wiedervernetzung von Landschaftsteilen. Ein häufig genutztes Werkzeug dafür sind Wildtierquerungshilfen wie...

to all non-German speaking readers: You will also find the content of this poster in the publication "Hunting suitability model: a new tool for managing wild ungulates" (https://doi.org/10.1002/wlb3.01021)

Garden Dormouse populations show a severe and ongoing decline all over Europe. The drivers for this process are still unknown, as well as the exact distribution of the remaining populations. An evaluation of the occupied habitats could give information on important habitat parameters. Therefore, it is essential to improve detection methods and to e...

Rising numbers of wild ungulates in human-dominated landscapes of Europe can induce negative effects like damages to forests. Therefore, effective wildlife manage- ment, including harvesting through hunting is becoming increasingly important. However, current hunting practices often fail to diminish those negative effects, as many ungulate species...

Uptake and use of energy are of key importance for animals living in temperate environments that undergo strong seasonal changes in forage quality and quantity. In ungulates, energy intake strongly affects body mass gain, an important component of individual fitness. Energy allocation among life-history traits can be affected by internal and extern...

Aim: Comprehensive, global information on species' occurrences is an essential biodiversity variable and central to a range of applications in ecology, evolution, biogeography and conservation. Expert range maps often represent a species' only available distributional information and play an increasing role in conservation assessments and macroeco...

Abstract When wild‐caught Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) from the Slovak Carpathian Mountains were reintroduced to Central Switzerland in the early 1970s and spread through the north‐western Swiss Alps (NWA), they faced a largely unfamiliar landscape with strongly fragmented forests, high elevations, and intense human land use. For more than 30 years, r...

Understanding the evolution of local adaptations is a central aim of evolutionary biology and key for the identification of unique populations and lineages of conservation relevance. By combining RAD sequencing and whole-genome sequencing, we identify genetic signatures of local adaptation in mountain hares (Lepus timidus) from isolated and distinc...

In modern wildlife ecology, spatial population genetic methods are becoming increasingly applied. Especially for animal species in fragmented landscapes, preservation of gene flow becomes a high priority target in order to restore genetic diversity and prevent local extinction. Within Central Europe, the Alps represent the core distribution area of...

Benford’s law (BL) specifies the expected digit distributions of data in social sciences, such as demographic or financial data. We focused on the first-digit distribution and hypothesized that it would apply to data on locations of animals freely moving in a natural habitat. We believe that animal movement in natural habitats may differ with respe...

Understanding the evolution of local adaptations is a central aim of evolutionary biology and key for the identification of unique populations and lineages of conservation relevance. By combining RAD sequencing and whole-genome sequencing, we identify genetic signatures of local adaptation in mountain hares ( Lepus timidus ) from isolated and disti...

Global climate change has led to range shifts in plants and animals, thus threatening biodiversity. Latitudinal shifts have been shown to be more pronounced than elevational shifts, implying that northern range edge margins may be more capable to keeping pace with warming than upper elevational limits. Additionally, global climate change is expecte...

The impact of domestic cats on vertebrates is now known globally - they are a major risk for endangered and threatened species. Hybridization of domestic and wild cats must also not go unnoticed, so there are already studies across Europe with differentiated results on this. Especially in the last decades, however, the domestic cat has become an in...

Climate change is known to affect key life history traits, such as body mass, reproduction, and survival in many species. Animal populations inhabiting mountain habitats are adapted to extreme seasonal environmental conditions, but are also expected to be especially vulnerable to climate change. Studies on mountain ungulates typically focus on popu...

Sexual dimorphism is a widespread phenomenon among mammals, including carnivorans. While sexual dimorphism in golden jackals ( Canis aureus ) has been analysed in the past, in the related and apparently convergent canid, the African wolf ( Canis lupaster ), it is poorly studied and showed to be relatively small. Previously, sexual size dimorphism (...

Rotwild möglichst wildschadensfrei in die Kulturlandschaft des Alpenraums zu integrieren und gleichzeitig den Wiederaufbau sowie Erhalt stabiler Waldbestände zu fördern ist eine Herausforderung, aber kein Ding der Unmöglichkeit. Im Rahmen eines dreijährigen Forschungsprojekts konnten Wissenschaftler und Praktiker gemeinsam geeignete Maßnahmen aufze...

Wildlife-related accidents, especially deer-vehicle accidents, pose a serious problem for road safety and animal protection in many countries. Knowledge of spatial and temporal patterns of deer-vehicle accidents is inevitable for accident analysis and mitigation efforts with temporal deer-vehicle accident data being much more difficult to obtain in...

Conflicts have emerged due to range expansions of the golden jackal (Canis aureus) across Europe, characterized by their international conservation status and perceived impacts on livestock and native prey species. Most countries in Central Europe do not yet include the golden jackal in their national list of occurring, native species. Nevertheless...

In female mammals, reproduction, and in particular lactation, is the energetically most exigent life-history phase. Reproduction is strongly controlled by body reserves and food availability, so females with better body condition or food supply are believed to have higher reproductive output. Additionally, the growth and mortality of young mammals...

The use of non-invasively collected DNA source material for genetic and genomic applications is usually characterized by low target DNA concentration and quality, genotyping errors and cost-intensive lab procedures. However, for otters (Lutrinae) as elusive species of conservation concern, genetic non-invasive sampling has become an important tool...

Knowledge of population trends is of key importance for sustainable management of wildlife and finding reliable and cost–effective monitoring methods is therefore of great interest. In two populations of Alpine chamois Rupicapra rupicapra, we collected data on mortality from 12424 individuals hunted or found dead and population size data based on g...

Anthropogenic disturbances, such as habitat modifications and machines, are associated with increased levels of faecal gluco-corticoid metabolites (fGCMs) in mammals, an indicator of a stress response. One human-caused process provoking incisive habitat alterations is harvesting arable crops. We investigated the effect of cereal harvest on fGCM con...

Golden jackal (Canis aureus) monitoring in central Europe generates more interest and becomes increasingly important with the species' appearance in areas where it was previously unestablished. For genetic monitoring of golden jackals via scat collection, the distinction of jackal scats from those of related species such as the red fox (Vulpes vulp...

Moose (Alces alces) may be among one of the most susceptible big game species to climate change. Development of long-term circumpolar databases of this species’ densities and distributions, combined with biological, ecological, and management-related metrics, can help guide research and future international management strategies. We emulated method...

Diet is important for understanding the ecology and evolution of populations. When examining animals’ diets, the lowest taxonomic rank (i.e., species level) is generally used. However, it is questionable whether dietary description varies with respect to the plant taxonomy or with the extent of plant species diversity in landscapes. We studied the...

Loss of biodiversity is one of the major challenges of the anthropocene. Various indices are used to quantify biodiversity. For vertebrates, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) uses the Living Planet Index (LPI). It is calculated globally as well as separately for the species occurring in terrestrial, freshwater, and marine biomes. Action to preve...

Since agricultural intensification started in the early 1900s, farmland biodiversity in Europe has decreased. Non-farmed features are of high importance for the promotion of plant and animal species including the European hare (Lepus europaeus). As an immediate cause of the decline in European hare abundances, a reduction in reproductive success ha...

Growing human-wildlife conflicts and legal conservation obligations increased the need for precise information on Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra) population parameters for species status assessment and wildlife management measures. Scat surveys have become the method of choice to monitor species distribution range, abundance and habitat use. Although...

Abstract Color molts from summer brown to winter white coats have evolved in several species to maintain camouflage year‐round in environments with seasonal snow. Despite the eco‐evolutionary relevance of this key phenological adaptation, its molecular regulation has only recently begun to be addressed. Here, we analyze skin transcription changes d...

This introductory volume provides an overview about the history and current status of European mammals, as well as management strategies. The remaining volumes cover comprehensive overviews of each species’ biology including paleontology, physiology, genetics, reproduction and development, ecology, habitat, diet, mortality and age determination. Th...

Glucocorticoids and glucocorticoid metabolites are increasingly used to index physiological stress in wildlife. Although feces is often abundant and can be collected noninvasively, exposure to biotic and abiotic elements may influence fecal glucocorticoid metabolite (FGM) concentrations, leading to inaccurate conclusions regarding wildlife physiolo...

Changing from summer-brown to winter-white pelage or plumage is a crucial adaptation to seasonal snow in more than 20 mammal and bird species. Many of these species maintain nonwhite winter morphs, locally adapted to less snowy conditions, which may have evolved independently. Mountain hares ( Lepus timidus ) from Fennoscandia were introduced into...

Hunting quotas are used to manage populations of game species in order to ensure sustainable exploitation. However, unpredictable climatic events may interact with hunting. We established a population model for European hares (Lepus europaeus) in Lower Austria. We compared the sustainability of voluntary quotas used by hunters-which are derived fro...

Information concerning factors regulating Alpine mountain hare (Lepus timidus varronis) populations such as host-parasite interactions is missing as only a few parasitological surveys exist of this subspecies. Parasites are not only dependent on their host but also on suitable environmental conditions for infestation. Abiotic environmental factors...

The Austrian province of Tyrol belongs to the areas where the alveolar echinococcosis (AE) caused by the fox tapeworm Echinococcus multilocularis (E. multilocularis) is highly endemic. In Central Europe and since 2011 in Austria, a growing incidence of human cases of AE has been observed, presumably linked with increasing fox populations infected b...

Knowledge on predator diet and drivers of prey selection is particularly of interest for an efficient management of predator and prey populations where predators potentially compete with humans for resources. Actual or perceived predation by Eurasian otter ( Lutra lutra ) on fish stocks generates conflicts in many countries. Recently, conflicts are...

This introductory volume provides an overview about the history and current status of European mammals, as well as management strategies. The remaining volumes cover comprehensive overviews of each species’ biology including paleontology, physiology, genetics, reproduction and development, ecology, habitat, diet, mortality and age determination. Th...

Long recognized as a threat to wildlife, livestock grazing in protected areas has the potential to undermine conservation goals, via competition, habitat degradation, human-carnivore conflict and disruption of predator-prey relationships. In the Strictly Protected Area Zorkul in Tajikistan (Zorkul Reserve), grazing is commonplace despite official p...

Body condition of an animal can be quantified by many different approaches such as morphometrics or physiological metrics. The outputs of these analyses can not only give information about the physiological status of an individual but it can also offer potential insights into its habitat and its quality or suitability. In this study we compared som...

In this study we investigated the presence and distribution of the golden jackal (Canis aureus Linnaeus, 1758) in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina and attempted to discover habitat structures potentially selected by this species. Furthermore, the distance of the detected animals to the nearest human settlement was also measured. Dispersal towards Ce...

Alpine and Arctic species are considered to be particularly vulnerable to climate change, which is expected to cause habitat loss, fragmentation and-ultimately-extinction of cold-adapted species. However, the impact of climate change on glacial relict populations is not well understood, and specific recommendations for adaptive conservation managem...

Animals that occupy temperate and polar regions have specialized traits that help them survive in harsh, highly seasonal environments. One particularly important adaptation is seasonal coat colour (SCC) moulting. Over 20 species of birds and mammals distributed across the northern hemisphere undergo complete, biannual colour change from brown in th...

Changing coats with the season Many species of mammals and birds molt from summer brown to winter white coats to facilitate camouflage. Mills et al. mapped global patterns of seasonal coat color change across eight species including hares, weasels, and foxes. They found regions where individuals molt to white, brown, and both white and brown winter...

Diversionary feeding implies strategic food provisioning to wildlife to lure animals away from undesired areas, and is a common forest management practice throughout Europe and North America. Within forestry, diversionary feeding typically targets cervids, and aims to reduce browsing damage and bark-stripping in vulnerable forest stands (young and...

Numbering 92 species worldwide, the order Lagomorpha is a focal point of conservation efforts. Approximately one-quarter of all lagomorphs are under conservation concern, and a few are quite literally on the brink of extinction. Here, leading conservation biologist Andrew T. Smith and his colleagues bring together the world’s lagomorph experts in t...

Semi-aquatic mammals have secondarily returned to the aquatic environment, although they spend a major part of their life operating in air. Moving both on land, as well as in, and under water is challenging because such species are considered to be imperfectly adapted to both environments. We deployed accelerometers combined with a depth sensor to...

Faecal glucocorticoid metabolite (FGM) concentrations are used increasingly as a non-invasive measure to index physiological stress experienced by diverse taxa. However, FGM may not be evenly distributed throughout a faecal mass or faecal pellet group. Moreover, within-sample variation in FGM measurements associated with different sampling and/or p...

We report the first mountain hare (Lepus timidus) transcriptome, produced by de novo assembly of RNA-sequencing reads. Data were obtained from eight specimens sampled in two localities, Alps and Ireland. The mountain hare tends to be replaced by the invading European hare (Lepus europaeus) in their numerous contact zones where the species hybridize...

The population decline of the European hare (Lepus europaeus) in Switzerland is generally attributed to low leveret survival. A significant intensification of agricultural practices led to a landscape transformation that reduced leveret survival by increasing negative factors such as predation pressure. Habitat improvement by means of wildflower st...

Summary and preliminary results of golden jackal surveys in the Austrian - Hungarian border region

Die in diesem Bewertungsset vorliegenden Prinzipien, Kriterien und Indikatoren (PKI) beziehen sich auf die Schnittstellen zwischen einer nachhaltigen Forstwirtschaft und einer nachhaltigen Jagd. Sowohl für die Forstwirtschaft (den Forstwirt), als auch für das Grundeigentum (den Grundeigentümer) wurde damit eine Selbstbewertungsmöglichkeit geschaffe...

Die in diesem Bewertungsset vorliegenden Prinzipien, Kriterien und Indikatoren (PKI) für nachhaltige Jagd beziehen sich auf das jagdliche Handlungsfeld und die jagdlichen Tätigkeiten, wobei mögliche Auswirkungen dieser Tätigkeiten auf andere Sektoren der Landnutzung (Forstwirtschaft, Landwirtschaft, Freizeit und Erholung) mitberücksichtigt wurden....

Die vorliegenden Prinzipien, Kriterien und Indikatoren (PKI) beziehen sich auf die Schnittstellen zwischen einer nachhaltigen Landwirtschaft und einer nachhaltigen Jagd. Als Anwender des Bewertungssets sind Landwirte (Bewirtschafter, landwirtschaftliche Betriebsführer, landwirtschaftliche Grundeigentümer) im Untersuchungsgebiet vorgesehen. Das Bewe...

Die vorliegenden Prinzipien, Kriterien und Indikatoren (PKI) beziehen sich auf die Schnittstellen zwischen einer nachhaltigen Freizeit- und Erholungsnutzung und einer nachhaltigen Jagd. Als Anwender des Bewertungssets sind Planungs- und Managementverantwortliche für Freizeit- und Erholungsaktivitäten und Verantwortliche für das Tourismusmanagement...