PDF(Pubmed)
Abstract：
Wild boar (Sus scrofa), an abundant species across Europe, is often subjected to management in agro-ecosystems in order to control population size, or to scare them away from agricultural fields to safeguard crop yields. Wild boar management can benefit from a better understanding on changes in its space use across the diel cycle (i.e., diel space use) in relation to variable hunting pressures or other factors. Here, we estimate wild boar diel space use in an agro-ecosystem in central Belgium during four consecutive \"growing seasons\" (i.e., April-September). To achieve this, we fit generalized additive mixed models (GAMMs) to camera trap data of wild boar aggregated over 1-h periods. Our results reveal that wild boar are predominantly nocturnal in all of the hunting management zones in Meerdaal, with activity peaks around sunrise and sunset. Hunting events in our study area tend to take place around sunrise and sunset, while non-lethal human activities occur during sunlight hours. Our GAMM reveals that wild boar use different areas throughout the diel cycle. During the day, wild boar utilized areas in the centre of the forest, possibly to avoid human activities during daytime. During the night, they foraged near (or in) agricultural fields. A post hoc comparison of space use maps of wild boar in Meerdaal revealed that their diurnal and nocturnal space use were uncorrelated. We did not find sufficient evidence to prove that wild boar spatiotemporally avoid hunters. Finally, our work reveals the potential of GAMMs to model variation in space across 24-h periods from camera trap data, an application that will be useful to address a range of ecological questions. However, to test the robustness of this approach we advise that it should be compared against telemetry-based methods to derive diel space use.
摘要：
野猪（Susscrofa），欧洲丰富的物种，经常在农业生态系统中进行管理，以控制人口规模，或吓唬他们远离农田，以保障作物产量。野猪管理可以从更好地了解其空间使用在整个diel周期中的变化中受益(即，diel空间使用)与可变的狩猎压力或其他因素有关。这里,我们估计比利时中部农业生态系统中连续四个“生长季节”的野猪diel空间使用情况(即，4月至9月）。为了实现这一点，我们将广义加性混合模型(GAMM)拟合到1小时内汇总的野猪相机陷阱数据。我们的结果表明，在Meerdaal的所有狩猎管理区中，野猪主要是夜间活动的，日出和日落前后的活动高峰。我们研究区域的狩猎活动往往发生在日出和日落前后，而非致命的人类活动发生在日照时间。我们的GAMM揭示了野猪在整个diel周期中使用不同的区域。白天,野猪在森林中心的利用区域，可能是为了避免白天的人类活动。在夜晚，他们在农田附近觅食。对Meerdaal野猪的空间使用图进行的事后比较表明，它们的昼夜和夜间空间使用是不相关的。我们没有找到足够的证据证明野猪时空避开猎人。最后,我们的工作揭示了GAMM从相机陷阱数据中模拟24小时周期空间变化的潜力，一个应用程序，将有助于解决一系列的生态问题。然而,为了测试这种方法的鲁棒性，我们建议将其与基于遥测的方法进行比较，以得出diel空间的使用。
