Can a forest specialist live in a city? Behavioural plasticity fosters the presence of a protected carnivore in urban areas

Urbanisation is reshaping mammalian communities worldwide, yet forest specialists are generally considered poor urban adapters. The pine marten Martes martes, for long regarded as an indicator of intact woodlands, has recently shown signs of expansion into human-modified landscapes. Here, we combined citizen-science records and camera-trapping data to reconstruct the distribution of the pine marten in urban areas of Italy. Moreover, we used camera traps to investigate activity patterns, and spatiotemporal niche overlaps of the pine marten comparing urban vs. natural context sampling campaigns in central Italy. Verified reports from 2000 to 2025 confirm the species presence in multiple Italian cities, including several regional capitals, with percent of wooded cover within the city boundaries as main driver of pine marten occurrence, together with city elevation and the occurrence of the congeneric M. foina. In a protected urban area of Rome, camera traps recorded 192 independent detections in one year, including 46 pine martens, 79 red foxes Vulpes vulpes, 33 Eurasian red squirrels Sciurus vulgaris, and 34 humans. Pine martens exhibited a predominantly crepuscular activity, with significant peaks at dawn and dusk, differing from the more nocturnal red fox. Temporal overlap between martens and foxes was low in the urban park (Δ₁ = 0.38) but overlap with red squirrels (Δ₁ = 0.84) and humans (Δ₁ = 0.77) was high, suggesting flexible diel adjustments to urban pressures. Compared to a natural reference site, pine martens in the city displayed reduced synchrony with foxes but increased overlap with both prey and human activity, indicating behavioural adaptation to anthropogenic environments. Our findings suggested a growing capacity of M. martes to persist in urban green spaces by modulating temporal activity and resource use. The increase of urban records of pine marten highlights the need to reconsider its ecological classification and integrate cities into future conservation strategies for this carnivore.