Who’s afraid of the big bad boar? Assessing the effect of wild boar presence on the occurrence and activity patterns of other mammals

Oliveira, Êmila Silveira de; Rodrigues, Manoel Ludwig da Fontoura; Severo, Magnus Machado; Santos, Tiágo Gomes dos; Kasper, Carlos Benhur

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0235312

Cited by 10 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Our study area was primarily forested with substantial understory cover, potentially limiting human disturbances and providing enough concealment to facilitate modest diurnal activity. Our conclusion that relocating behavior was most likely to occur at dusk and the early nighttime hours conformed with observations from other regions, where sunset serves as a cue to initiate activity and movement (Lemel et al 2003, Silveira de Oliveira et al 2020). For social animals, it is unsurprising to see differences in the proportion of behavioral states exhibited by separate groups and wild pigs are a highly adaptable species that readily respond to their environment (Gray et al 2020 b ).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Behavioral states in space and time: understanding landscape use by an invasive mammal

et al. 2022

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Animal movement models can be used to understand species behavior and assist with implementation of management activities. We explored behavioral states of an invasive wild pig (Sus scrofa) population that recently colonized central Michigan, USA, 2014–2018. To quantify environmental factors related to wild pig movement ecology and spatio‐temporal landscape use, we predicted wild pig behavioral states relative to land cover type, landscape structure (i.e., edge and patch cohesion), and weather conditions. We used global positioning system (GPS)‐collars and monitored 8 wild pigs from 2014–2018. We fit local convex hulls and calculated movement metrics revealing 3 wild pig behavioral states (resting, exploratory, and relocating) and constructed a 3‐level model to predict behavioral state probabilities relative to biotic and abiotic conditions. Probabilities of exploratory and resting behaviors were higher nearer to riparian and open herbaceous cover types (oftentimes emergent marsh), indicating that these cover types provided security cover during activity and bedding. Hard mast cover types had a strong positive association with relocating behaviors. More cohesive patches of agriculture and shrub cover types were associated with higher probabilities of exploratory behaviors, while resting was more likely in continuous patches of agriculture (mostly mid‐summer corn). The probability of exploratory behaviors increased exponentially with warming ambient temperature. Our results may be used by managers to develop control strategies conducive to landscape and environmental conditions where the likelihood of encountering wild pigs is highest or targeting wild pigs when in a behavioral state most vulnerable to a particular removal technique.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Behavioral states in space and time: understanding landscape use by an invasive mammal

et al. 2022

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“…White-tailed deer are vigilant to noise and movements of nonpredator species as observed at baited camera stations where multiple species aggregate (Lashley et al, 2014). Additionally, white-tailed deer (hereafter, deer) and wild pigs overlap extensively in diet and use of vegetation cover, which is likely to trigger competition among these species (de Oliveira et al, 2020;Elston & Hewitt, 2010;Mikulka et al, 2018;VerCauteren et al, 2020). Deer and wild pigs each have been shown to select for areas with hardwood canopy cover, often with dense understory vegetation, because this cover type offers food resources (particularly acorns; Kammermeyer & Carlock, 2000;Mikulka et al, 2018), thermal cover/refugia (Clontz et al, 2021a(Clontz et al, , 2021bGerard et al, 1991;Kay et al, 2017;Kilgo et al, 2021), and protection from predators.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Co‐occurrence of native white‐tailed deer and invasive wild pigs: Evidence for competition?

et al. 2023

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Understanding whether invasive and native species compete for shared resources where they co-occur is essential for mitigating the negative impacts of invasive species on native ecosystems. Here, we examined how the presence and density of an invasive species, wild pigs (Sus scrofa), affect native white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus; hereafter, deer) on the Savannah River Site, SC, USA. We examined potential changes in deer areas of use, temporal overlap, and occupancy to evaluate the effects of wild pig occurrence and density on deer space use, diel activity, and co-occurrence with wild pigs across 9 months during 2018 and 2019. Wild pig density had the strongest effect on deer space use in high-and moderate-use areas. Declines in deer space use in response to wild pig density were most pronounced in March and October 2018 and April 2019 for females, while male space use declined in response to wild pig density in October and December 2018. Both species were largely nocturnal with high overlap in diel activity across months. Deer occupancy responses to wild pig density varied across months, with negative responses in May and October 2018 and positive responses in July 2018 and April 2019. Deer and wild pigs co-occurred at 30%-59% of camera stations across months, with broadscale co-occurrence patterns being unaffected by changes in shared cover or wild pig occurrence. Overall, our results suggest that deer make fine-scale behavioral adjustments to avoid wild pigs, providing evidence that competition is likely occurring even where wild pig density is relatively low. Such fine-scale behavioral plasticity in deer appears to mitigate the costs of competition with wild pigs and may be a mechanism enabling long-term co-existence of deer and wild pigs. Our study provides novel insight on the complexities of spatiotemporal relationships between invasive wild pigs and native deer and suggests that the negative effects of interactions between deer and wild pigs may be more pronounced when deer life history needs are particularly demanding. In areas where eradication of invasive wild pigs may be impossible, maintaining low wild pig densities may help mitigate, but may not eliminate, the negative effects of wild pigs on deer.

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“…Because of nonnormality, one-tailed Wilcoxon rank sum tests were performed to determine whether the time intervals of a given ungulate species to the next detection of Williamson's mouse deer were significantly longer than those of two successive detections of Williamson's mouse deer. A significant test result suggests that interspecific temporal avoidance exceeded temporal avoidance between conspecifics (Harmsen et al, 2009;de Oliveira et al, 2020), which would imply that Williamson's mouse deer does show direct temporal avoidance of the given ungulate species. We repeated these analysis procedures for Williamson's mouse deer with the different larger ungulate species.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The extremely small body size of Williamson’s mouse deer (Tragulus williamsoni) allows coexistence with sympatric larger ungulates through temporal avoidance

He,

Wang,

Goodale

et al. 2023

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Research on the coexistence of congeneric species is essential for understanding community assemblages. Smaller competitors are expected to avoid larger ones, either spatially or temporally, to reduce interspecific competition. According to the spatial scaling law, the greater the difference in body size, the weaker the competitive interactions of the competitors. However, this is not confirmed in the guild of tropical forest ungulates. In this study, we assessed the competitive interactions of Williamson’s mouse deer (Tragulus williamsoni), an endangered species and one of the smallest ungulates in the world, with sympatric larger ungulates. We hypothesized that: 1) because of its extremely small body size, competition with the larger ungulates would be relatively weak, allowing spatial co-existence but still requiring temporal avoidance, and 2) the strength of avoidance would increases with decreasing differences in body size. We set up 238 camera traps from January 2017 to January 2021 to survey Williamson’s mouse deer and the sympatric larger ungulate species, that is, northern red muntjac (Muntiacus vaginalis), wild boar (Sus scrofa), Chinese serow (Capricornis milneedwardsii), and sambar (Rusa unicolor), in the protected areas of Mengla County, southwestern China. We then performed spatio-temporal analyses, including occupancy models, daily activity patterns, and a time interval analysis. Spatially, there was no significant avoidance. Temporally, Williamson’s mouse deer had different daily activity patterns and direct temporal avoidance of all larger ungulate species. The lack of spatial avoidance and strong temporal avoidance supported our first hypothesis, but the stronger avoidance of much larger species ran counter to our second hypothesis. Our results revealed the coexistence mechanism between Williamson’s mouse deer and sympatric larger ungulates and suggested that the difference in body size is limited in explaining the competitive interactions of tropical forest ungulates due to the effects of multiple ecological processes. This deepens our understanding of the relationship between species trait differences and community assembly in tropical forest ecosystems.

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Who’s afraid of the big bad boar? Assessing the effect of wild boar presence on the occurrence and activity patterns of other mammals

Cited by 10 publications

References 26 publications

Behavioral states in space and time: understanding landscape use by an invasive mammal

Behavioral states in space and time: understanding landscape use by an invasive mammal

Co‐occurrence of native white‐tailed deer and invasive wild pigs: Evidence for competition?

The extremely small body size of Williamson’s mouse deer (Tragulus williamsoni) allows coexistence with sympatric larger ungulates through temporal avoidance

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