Authors: Hernandez Hernandez, Javier; Sánchez-Cerdá, Mariola;Cabezas-Díaz, Sara ;Gil-Sánchez, José María;Rodríguez-Siles, Javier;Virgós, Emilio;

Domestic cats are considered one of the main threats to biodiversity conservation worldwide. Most of the evidence was based on studies where the impact of predation was not based on prey demographic models or oceanic islands scenarios. We aimed to model the drivers of domestic cat presence in natural landscapes of Spain based on 12 camera-trapping over 60-day period surveys in 50 plots (2000ha), covering all habitat and conditions. We estimated a number of variables around each camera (500m buffer). As predictor variables, we used land-use variables, estimated the number and distance to the houses and the presence of red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and wildcat (Felis silvestris). We analyzed the 17 plots with the presence of domestic cats, using these as the response variable with the plot as a random factor applying GLMM with binomial errors. The final model revealed domestic cat was negatively related to wildcat presence and distance to houses and positively related to pasture cover. From this study, we can argue the potential impact of domestic cats on wild fauna is probably negligible, and because wildcats appeared to negatively affect domestic cats the potential scenario for hybridization between both species can be suggested as of minor relevance.