Increasing forest disturbance enhances habitat suitability for Europe’s large herbivores

Forest disturbances have increased substantially over the last decades in many regions, but how they impact wildlife habitats often remains poorly understood. We combine an animal tracking dataset comprising 3,069 individuals from four large herbivore species (European bison, moose, red deer, roe deer) with satellite-based forest disturbance time series to explore this question for Europe at the continental scale. All species showed an increased selection of disturbed areas for 30+ years post-disturbance. Selection patterns closely reflected species-specific foraging strategies, suggesting food availability as the main driver. Selection was also related to characteristics of the disturbed area (e.g., patch size), predator presence, human pressure, and climatic gradients (e.g., winter temperature), indicating that large herbivores navigate trade-offs between resource acquisition and risk avoidance. Across Europe, forest disturbances between 2000 and 2023 had positive but regionally varying effects on habitat suitability for large herbivores. Our findings suggest that higher levels of disturbance increases carrying capacity and concentrate large herbivores in disturbed areas. Both may amplify conflicts with forestry, but could also contribute to restoring large herbivores and their ecological roles in forests. Overall, our study highlights the importance of considering disturbance-related habitat dynamics in wildlife and forest management under intensifying disturbance regimes.