An uncomfortable neighborhood: presence evolution of two competing carnivores in north-eastern Italy

Within ecological communities, larger predators typically limit mesocarnivore populations. On a continental scale, this may be the case for the grey wolf (Canis lupus) over the golden jackal (Canis aureus) in Europe. North-eastern Italy represents one of the first areas in Western Europe to experience golden jackal colonization, followed by wolf recolonization. Since few studies have investigated the spatial relationship between these two wild canids, this work aimed to analyze their distribution dynamics and investigate whether the wolf and environmental factors may have influenced golden jackal distribution at a local scale. We used systematic and opportunistic data collected over 11 years (2013-2023) to assess the presence of both species on a 10x10 km square grid system. A multinomial logistic mixed model (MLMM) was applied to test whether the study period and landscape metrics (terrain ruggedness and habitat fragmentation indices) influenced both species’ presence at a broad scale ..., , , # Data from: An uncomfortable neighborhood: presence evolution of two competing carnivores in north-eastern Italy

## Description of the data and file structure

This dataset contains the data and code required to replicate analyses in Frangini et al. (2025)

### Files and variables

#### File: MLMM_dataset.csv

**Description:** The dataset used to perform the MLMM as described in the manuscript. Each row refers to a single grid square for a specific year.

This .csv file is semicolon-delimited with a comma decimal.

##### Variables

* ID: the numeric ID of the grid square.
* Species_c1: the presence category for that grid square in a specific year, based on C1 data: \"Jackal\" or \"Wolf\", when one of the two species has been found; \"Sympatry\", when both species have been found; \"Absence\", when neither jackal nor wolf has been found. 
* LDI: the mean value of Landscape Division Index inside the grid square.
* ENN: the mean Euclidean Nearest Neighbor distance among urban patches inside the ...,