Understanding habitat selection of range-expanding populations of large carnivores: 20 years of grey wolves (Canis lupus) recolonizing Germany

Aim: The non-stationarity in habitat selection of expanding populations poses a significant challenge for spatial forecasting. Focusing on the grey wolf (Canis lupus) natural recolonization of Germany, we compared the performance of different distribution modelling approaches for predicting habitat suitability in unoccupied areas. Furthermore, we analysed whether grey wolf showed non-stationarity in habitat selection in newly colonized areas, which will impact the predictions for potential habitat.
Location: Germany
Methods: Using telemetry data as presence points, we compared the predictive performance of five modelling approaches based on combinations of distribution modelling algorithms –GLMM, MaxEnt, and ensemble modelling– and two background point selection strategies. We used a homogeneous Poisson point process to draw background points from either the minimum convex polygons derived from telemetry or the whole area known to be occupied by wolves. Models were fit to the data of th..., Our wolf data comprised two complementary datasets. Our first dataset consisted of GPS telemetry locations of 20 collared resident wolves from 2009 to 2018. This data is provided at a 50km resolution due to species conservation concerns. Our final telemetry dataset consisted of 3,841 locations from 21 home ranges (183 ± 104 locations per home range). Our second dataset consisted of centroids of known wolf territories monitored annually since 2000 (www.dbb-wolf.de/Wolfsvorkommen/territorien/karte-der-territorien). The centroids of the territories were assessed after the end of the monitoring year, as the central point of all activity signs (scats; camera trap images; telemetry data, when available; opportunistic sightings; hunt remains) that were assigned to the same territory. Territory areas for our study were delineated with a radius of 8 km around their centroids, resulting in territory sizes of approx. 200 km²., Datasets are specially optimised for R, but they can open with any software that reads .csv files., # Data tables for the manuscript \"Understanding range-expanding populations of large carnivores: 20 years of recolonizing grey wolves (Canis lupus) in Germany\"

### Table monitoring territories

Centroids of the wolf territories in Germany over the years. Coordinades are provided using epsg 3035. Average value of environmental variables is also provided for a buffer of 8km around the centroid, representing the territory. CLC2012: Corine Land Cover reclassied value (see Methods), Pop\_den: human population density, HFP: value of the Human FootPrint, Dist\_settl: Distance to settlements in meters, Dist\_roads: distance to roads in meters.

### Table telemetry 50km

Telemetry data of the collared wolves. Data is provided at 50km resolution, as during the time that this study is carried out wolves are a threatened species. Cellcode refers to the Identification of the 50km grid cell in the reference grid by the European Environmental Agency (EEA, http://www.eea.europa.eu/legal/copyright). Ce...