Data and codes to replicate the analysis in: The spatial ecology of conflicts: Unravelling patterns of wildlife damage at multiple scales

Human encroachment into natural habitats is typically followed by
conflicts derived from wildlife damages to agriculture and livestock.
Spatial risk modelling is a useful tool to gain understanding of wildlife
damage and mitigate conflicts. Although resource selection is a
hierarchical process operating at multiple scales, risk models usually
fail to address more than one scale, which can result in the
misidentification of the underlying processes. Here, we addressed the
multi-scale nature of wildlife damage occurrence by considering ecological
and management correlates interacting from household to landscape scales.
We studied brown bear (Ursus arctos) damage to apiaries in the
North-eastern Carpathians as our model system. Using generalized additive
models, we found that brown bear tendency to avoid humans and the habitat
preferences of bears and beekeepers determine the risk of bear damage at
multiple scales. Damage risk at fine scales increased when the broad
landscape context also favoured damages. Furthermore, integrated-scale
risk maps resulted in more accurate predictions than single-scale models.
Our results suggest that principles of resource selection by animals can
be used to understand the occurrence of damages and help mitigate
conflicts in a proactive and preventive manner.