Apennine brown bears (Ursus arctos marsicanus) have been in close contact with humans for generations. Their small, endangered population exists only in central Italy, and previous research suggests that this population split off from other European brown bears 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. Compared to European, North American, and Asian brown bears, Apennine brown bears have distinctive facial and head traits, smaller bodies, and are less aggressive. He and his colleagues from the University of Ferrara used genomic analysis to investigate how humans have recently changed the Apennine brown bear’s evolution. They found, unsurprisingly, that Apennine brown bears exhibited less genomic diversity and greater inbreeding than other brown bears due to their isolation.