Patterns of land use and land cover change and its consequences for wildlife: Agricultural abandonment and brown bears (Ursas arctos) in eastern Europe

The overarching goal of my dissertation was to contribute to a better understanding of the consequences of land use change for wildlife. My dissertation consists of three chapters based on coarse-resolution satellite images, remote sensing, and geographic information systems. In my first chapter, I evaluated which combination of data results in the best classifications of abandoned agriculture land at broad scales with coarse-resolution (MODIS), exemplifying the method in the northwestern part of Eastern Europe with MODIS imagery. In my second chapter, I applied this method to map abandoned agricultural land and examined agro-ecological constraints across Eastern Europe. In my third chapter I analyzed the relationship between land abandonment, and resulting changes in landscape patterns, with brown bear (Ursus arctos arctos ) populations in European Russia.;In my first chapter I developed a new approach to map agricultural land abandonment; the main contribution here was thus the development and refinement of remote sensing methods, by complementing the toolbox for mapping land cover changes. To map the trend of land abandonment and less intensive agricultural use can elucidate the impacts and feedbacks between land cover changes and other ecosystem's components.;In my second chapter I made contributions in two dimensions: basic science and methodologies. My contribution to basic science here was to establish that institutions and policies can be the main driver of Land Use Land Cover Change (LULCC) and that socioeconomic disturbances can occur rapidly and have large effects on LULCC. My methodological contribution was to provide a new dataset on agricultural land abandonment across Eastern Europe and that experienced widespread land abandonment.;In my third chapter I made contributions to all three dimensions: basic science, methodologies, and conservation and management. My basic science contribution was to provide a better understanding of bear habitat use at the range-scale. My methodological contribution was to analyze a Brown bear population not yet well known and to test new methodologies to measure dispersal and fragmentation. My contribution for conservation and management was to show potential areas of human-wildlife conflicts and a model to identify areas of opportunity for bear population recovery.