Open research questions in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation

What the literature leaves open

• Our study advances understanding of the spatial and temporal dynamics within an understudied dryland carnivore guild and provides three conservation implications: First, our findings indicate that Asiatic cheetahs avoid human disturbance, highlighting the need for targeted conservation measures in areas with high human density to minimize anthropogenic disturbance.

  Coexistence under constraint: Spatiotemporal co‐occurrence in a dryland carnivore guild · 2026 · DOI

• There is a lack of studies on ocelot density in northeastern Mexico. Prior studies have focused on southern regions of Mexico, leaving a knowledge gap for populations in the north. There is a need for reliable density estimates to evaluate population viability and guide management actions.

  Ocelot (Leopardus pardalis) density and activity pattern in a biological corridor in northeastern Mexico · 2026 · DOI

• Notably, such head stereotypic behaviors have not been reported in previous studies of captive alpine musk deer, which primarily reported oral stereotypic behaviors (such as eating non-food items, stereotypic licking and scraping).

  Development of Stereotypic Behaviors and Personality Traits of Captive Male Forest Musk Deer and Relationships with Musk Secretion · 2026 · DOI

• Future research should prioritize the integration of ecological and social data, the development of scalable and context-sensitive interventions, and the evaluation of long-term outcomes. In particular, there is a need to better understand how behavioral, institutional, and technological innovations can interact to support sustainable coexistence.

  From Conflict to Coexistence: Rethinking Human-Wildlife Relationships in a Changing World · 2026 · DOI

• Limited participation of hunting grounds in the digital system. Need for support services and training for hunters and managers.

  Every bird counts: insights from the first use of a digital gamebag registration system for the European Turtle dove in Spain · 2026 · DOI

• Lack of harmonized gamebag reporting systems in Europe. Inadequacy of current gamebag reporting systems for sustainable hunting. Limited knowledge on the effectiveness of digital gamebag registration systems for the European Turtle dove.

  Every bird counts: insights from the first use of a digital gamebag registration system for the European Turtle dove in Spain · 2026 · DOI

• If non-proportionality is possible (e.g. through the saturation of sampling gear) effort should be included as a covariate, because this can model a proportional relationship plus deviations from it. Using a smoother + s(log(effort)) term is most useful due to its flexibility and robust shrinkage; the log-transformation of effort is important even for smoothers (Table S2).

  Offset or not: guidance on accounting for sampling effort when modelling abundance data · 2026 · DOI

• The research mentions the need to control for multicollinearity among fixed effects. The study notes the challenge of capturing the broader environmental and anthropogenic context surrounding incident locations.

  Spatial and temporal patterns of asian elephant electrocution in Assam, India · 2026 · DOI

• The lack of quantitative assessments of electrocution risk in northeastern India. The limited understanding of how multiple linear infrastructure elements interact spatially with electrocution risk. The need for a study that investigates the drivers of electrocution in Assam, India.

  Spatial and temporal patterns of asian elephant electrocution in Assam, India · 2026 · DOI

• The lack of effective methods for predicting wild boar habitat suitability and its spatiotemporal drivers. The need for improved ecological realism and resilience to climate extremes in Species Distribution Modeling. The requirement for actionable knowledge to inform French transportation planning, agriculture, and wildlife management.

  Wild boar collision data and satellite computer vision refine habitat suitability mapping across France · 2026 · DOI

• The complexity of human-wildlife conflicts, which can involve multiple taxonomic groups and various aspects of human-wildlife interactions. The potential biases in the published literature, which can shape the perceived trends and priorities in HWC research. The need for more diverse and representative studies on HWC to address the gaps in the current research.

  From conflicts to coexistence between people and wildlife – coverage by European Journal of Wildlife Research · 2026 · DOI

• This study has proposed PGNet-AL2, a pose-guided network with adaptive L2 regularization, to address key challenges in endangered feline re-identification under limited data conditions, including pose variations, background interference, and sparse samples.

  Enhancing Endangered Feline Conservation in Asia via a Pose-Guided Deep Learning Framework for Individual Identification · 2025 · DOI

• Scenarios categorized as “adverse events”, including disease outbreaks, illegal hunting, and human–wolf conflicts, presented high extinction risks, while habitat expansion alone was insufficient, emphasizing the necessity of an integrated approach combining corridors, population management, and conflict mitigation.

  Modeling Wolf, Canis lupus, Recolonization Dynamics to Plan Conservation Actions Ahead: Will the “Big Bad Wolves” Howl Again in Slavonia, Croatia? · 2025 · DOI

• We acknowledge that it is likely that species remain under-studied partly due to a lack of funding opportunities.

  Comparing the Utility of Capture–Mark–Recapture, Telemetry, and Genetic Data in Assessing Population-Level Dispersal · 2025 · DOI

• Further research on this phenomenon, as to whether it is a demonstration of cognitive mapping or perhaps an acute sense of smell, would be rewarding.

  Mobility Confers Resilience in Red Kangaroos (Osphranter rufus) to a Variable Climate and Coexisting Herbivores (Sheep, Goats, Rabbits and Three Sympatric Kangaroo Species) in an Arid Australian Rangeland · 2025 · DOI

• Prior research has not comprehensively studied human-elephant conflict with ecological covariates.

  Unveiling the Hidden Causes: Identifying the Drivers of Human–Elephant Conflict in Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, Western Ghats, Southern India · 2024 · DOI

• The need to balance human-wolf coexistence in heterogeneous landscapes.

  Changes in Wolf Occupancy and Feeding Habits in the Northern Apennines: Results of Long-Term Predator–Prey Monitoring · 2024 · DOI

• The number of daily GPS locations may be considered limited. Technical issues, such as intermittent module operation and the lack of GPS signal, led to a reduced number of measurements on certain days.

  Over 300 km Dispersion of Wild Boar during Hot Summer, from Central Poland to Ukraine · 2024 · DOI

• There is a lack of understanding of the characteristics of wild boar movement during the 'nomadic phase'. There is a need to evaluate the influence of meteorological factors on the minimum daily travel distance of the wild boar. Prior studies have not examined the impact of weather conditions on wild boar movement in detail.

  Over 300 km Dispersion of Wild Boar during Hot Summer, from Central Poland to Ukraine · 2024 · DOI

• There is a need to understand the dietary needs of goitered gazelles for effective conservation strategies. Seasonal dietary changes are crucial for herbivores residing in arid and semi-arid regions.

  Seasonal Diet Composition of Goitered Gazelle (Gazella subgutturosa) in an Arid and Semi-Arid Region of Western China · 2024 · DOI

• The research had to overcome the complexity of nonlinear or nonmonotonic relationships between response variables and environmental factors. The study had to address the issue of scarcity of human and natural resources for effective habitat protection.

  Assessment of Waterbird Habitat Importance and Identification of Conservation Gaps in Anhui Province · 2024 · DOI

• Many wild animals are hard to catch to measure condition via phenotypes such as mass. Predicting which individuals are most likely to survive or reproduce depending on condition remains an obstacle in ecological research and wildlife management and conservation.

  Moult Timing as a Measure of Condition in a Northern Hemisphere Ungulate · 2026 · DOI

• Model results contrasted with empirical estimates for the Bathurst herd Amplitude of oscillations in abundance varied widely across simulated population trajectories identified as periodic.

  Drivers of periodicity in population dynamic models of long-lived, large mammals · 2026 · DOI

• Investigating the application of the multitemporal SDM pipeline to other species, - Examining the impact of climate change on wild boar habitat suitability, - Developing more robust methods for addressing sampling biases in presence-only…

  Wild boar collision data and satellite computer vision refine habitat suitability mapping across France · 2026 · DOI

• Our long-term data show that urban wild bird admissions are often associated with some degree of human impact and that rehabilitation duration and the likelihood…

  Worth the Effort? Rehabilitation Causes and Outcomes and the Assessment of Post-Release Survival for Urban Wild Bird Admissions in a European Metropolis · 2025 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation

• Patch use as an indicator of habitat preference, predation risk, and competition · Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology · 1988 · 1,054 citations
• The Empty Forest · BioScience · 1992 · 863 citations
• Large Herbivore Foraging and Ecological Hierarchies · BioScience · 1987 · 788 citations
• COVID-19 lockdown allows researchers to quantify the effects of human activity on wildlife · Nature Ecology & Evolution · 2020 · 518 citations
• Big-data approaches lead to an increased understanding of the ecology of animal movement · Science · 2022 · 512 citations
• Human–wildlife coexistence in a changing world · Conservation Biology · 2020 · 490 citations
• Feeding wildlife as a tourism attraction: a review of issues and impacts · Tourism Management · 2002 · 436 citations
• Range Contractions of North American Carnivores and Ungulates · BioScience · 2004 · 419 citations
• A new regression method for analyzing the aggregation pattern of animal populations · Population Ecology · 1968 · 395 citations
• Estimating Animal Abundance: Review III · Statistical Science · 1999 · 382 citations

Most recent work

• Clarifying space use concepts in ecology: Range vs. occurrence distributions · Ecology · 2026
• Individual identification of brown bears using pose-aware metric learning · Current Biology · 2026
• A hidden Markov framework for joint identification of animal activity modes and movement phases · Landscape Ecology · 2026
• Large mammal recovery in the wake of human population decline · Journal of Applied Ecology · 2026
• Spatio‐temporal patterns and risk factors of wild boar–pig farm contact across Europe · Journal of Applied Ecology · 2026
• Optimizing camera‐trap survey designs for multi‐species density estimation using spatial capture–recapture models · Journal of Applied Ecology · 2026
• Passive acoustic monitoring can provide insights into occupancy dynamics and impacts of disturbance for at‐risk species · Ecological Applications · 2026
• Foraging benefits promote fitness in migratory mule deer · Current Biology · 2026
• Human–wildlife conflict · Current Biology · 2026
• Introducing TropiCam‐AI: A taxonomically flexible automated classifier of Neotropical arboreal mammals and birds from camera‐trap data · Methods in Ecology and Evolution · 2026

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