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Competition is a widespread interaction among carnivores, ultimately manifested through one or more dimensions of the species' ecological niche. One of the most explicit manifestations of competitive interactions regards spatial displacement. Its interpretation under a theoretical context provides an important tool to deepen our understanding of biological systems and communities, but also for wildlife management and conservation. We used Bayesian multispecies occupancy models on camera‐trapping data from multiple sites in Southwestern Europe (SWE) to investigate competitive interactions within a carnivore guild, and to evaluate how species' ecological traits are shaping coexistence patterns. Seventeen out of 26 pairwise interactions departed from a hypothesis of independent occurrence, with spatial association being twice as frequent as avoidance. Association behaviors were only detected among mesocarnivores, while avoidance mainly involved mesocarnivores avoiding the apex predator (n = 4) and mesocarnivore‐only interactions (n = 2). Body mass ratios, defined as the dominant over the subordinate species body mass, revealed an important negative effect (β^=-0.38;CI95=-0.81to-0.06) on co‐occurrence probability, and support that spatially explicit competitive interactions are mostly expressed by larger species able to dominate over smaller ones, with a threshold in body mass ratios of ~4, above which local‐scale intraguild coexistence is unlikely. We found a weak relationship between pairwise trophic niche overlap and the probability of coexistence (β^=-0.19;CI95=-0.58to0.21), suggesting that competition for feeding resources may not be a key driver of competition, at least at the scale of our analysis. Despite local‐scale avoidance, regional‐scale coexistence appears to be maintained by the spatial structuring of the competitive environment. We provide evidence that SWE ecosystems consist of spatially structured competitive environments, and propose that coexistence among near‐sized species is likely achieved through the interplay of "facultative" and "behavioral" character displacements. Factors influencing carnivore coexistence likely include context‐dependent density and trait‐mediated effects, which should be carefully considered for a sound understanding of the mechanisms regulating these communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To address the problems associated with the management of increasing numbers of large ungulates in many European countries, more holistic approaches, such as ecosystem or landscape management, are called on to replace, for example, sectoral and single-species management. The implementation of holistic approaches, however, requires changes in societal institutions, which have proven to be both complicated and conflicting. The purpose of this article is to examine the institutional obstacles and incentives associated with the implementation of two holistic approaches to wildlife management, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the European Landscape Convention (ELC). Examination of the operational guidelines of the two approaches identified a number of challenges associated with multilevel and multiparty decision-making procedures. These institutional challenges need to be addressed in a systematic way in order to increase the adaptive capacity of the management of wildlife in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]