Source populations and roads affect American black bear recolonization
Understanding species distributions and population responses to environmental parameters is important for addressing landscape-level species conservation. We assessed American black bear (Ursus americanus) resource selection based on spatial distribution of a recolonizing population in Mississippi, USA. Given the philopatric behavior of female bears and the risk-disturbance hypothesis, we predicted that bears recolonizing Mississippi would occupy areas close to their source population but avoid areas near roads and with greater human population density.