Wildlife responses to recreational trail density are mediated by landscape configuration rather than short-term increases in recreation intensity

Protected areas play a key role in conserving biodiversity, yet they increasingly face the challenge of balancing wildlife conservation with rising recreational use. Understanding how wildlife responds to human activity across space and time is therefore crucial to support coexistence. We used camera trap and visitor data to examine how recreational trail density, weekend visitation peaks, and landscape configuration influence spatiotemporal behaviour of roe deer, wild boar, and red fox in the densely visited Hoge Kempen National Park, Belgium. Despite a doubling of on-trail visitation during weekends, activity patterns of wildlife remained unchanged. Moreover, trail density negatively affected wildlife detection rates, but did not differ between weekdays and weekends, indicating that short-term increases in visitor numbers did not alter species’ responses to recreational infrastructure. Instead, wildlife responses to trail density were mediated by landscape configuration: while roe deer and wild boar were more frequent in forest interiors and red fox in open areas, the negative effect of trail density was strongest in open landscapes and declined progressively with distance into forest interiors, becoming negligible deep in forested areas. These findings demonstrate that in densely visited protected areas, landscape configuration, rather than short-term visitor peaks, mediates wildlife responses to recreational infrastructure.