| Summary: | Tese de mestrado, Biologia da Conservação, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2021 Brown bears (Ursus arctos) population has been increasing in Greece. Despite the optimistic trend, human persecution and road kills continue to threaten this species. Our work used a sample of 21 animals fitted with GPS/GSM Followit collars in northern Greece and focused on bear circadian activity patterns and human related risk and other environmental variables impact on bear habitat selection and movement behaviour. To reach our goals we used hidden Markov models to classify bear behaviour according to its movement state and incorporated this information on integrated step selection functions. Our study found that, bears avoided all human related risks. This was more noticeable during nighttime when bears avoided paved and unpaved roads, and human settlements. Bears selected areas closer to forest edges throughout all day and avoided crossing high proportions of meadows and cultivation areas during night. These findings show us that minimizing human disturbance and increase habitat connec tivity are crucial for bear conservation.
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