Research overview: Eurasian lynx activity and home ranges

This overview examines the activity and spatial ecology of the Eurasian lynx, drawn from extensive GPS-telemetry research. The species is largely crepuscular and nocturnal, maintaining very large home ranges that scale with prey density and can span hundreds of square kilometers in northern forests. Individuals are solitary and territorial, with males overlapping several females, and juveniles disperse over long distances, sometimes crossing inhospitable terrain. These wide-ranging movements make connectivity and large habitat blocks essential and expose lynx to roads and fragmentation. Quantifying ranging behavior underpins reserve design, road-mitigation planning, and population models, and it explains why even apparently sizable forests may hold only a few lynx given the species expansive spatial requirements.