Climate change threatens wildlife species, negatively affecting their fitness through environmental change, such as through increased severity of droughts and summer heatwaves. Wild boar (Sus scrofa), a species with limited physiological thermoregulation abilities, is potentially vulnerable to high temperatures during summer. Yet little is known about the behavioural reactions of this species to heat stress. Detailed understanding of wild boar behavioural adaptations to their environment might help understand their future population growth and change in the geographical range. We used multisensory collars on 24 individual wild boars in the Czech Republic, calculating the dynamic body acceleration as a proxy for energy expenditure to detect activity changes in response to high temperatures on two temporal scales (daily and seasonal) and during heatwaves. Our results revealed that overall, under higher temperatures, wild boars reduce their activity, unless it rained. Heatwave duration did not affect wild boar activity. We show that wild boars adapt their activity to weather conditions and highlight the importance of sufficient precipitation for thermoregulation in this species. This suggests that studies about climate change impacts on wildlife behaviour should consider not only rising temperatures but also shifts in rainfall patterns. Additionally, this research shows the potential of remote-sensing technologies to monitor wildlife behaviour, particularly in challenging observational scenarios, offering valuable insights into the behavioural responses of wildlife in the face of a changing climate.

• Keywords
• Sus scrofa, behaviour, biologging, climate change, heat, telemetry,
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH

Wild boars are an opportunistic wildlife species that has successfully colonized the human-modified landscape in Europe. However, the current population boom has negative consequences, which result in a rapid increase in human-wildlife conflicts and disease transmission, including African swine fever (ASF). The increasing frequency of conflicts requires adequate solutions for these issues through various measures. Application of deterrents is a common non-lethal measure whose effects have been insufficiently verified until recently. Thus, this study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of odor fences, often applied as a barrier against wild boar movement. For this purpose, 18 wild boars were marked with GPS collars. After 22 days of initial monitoring, 12 sections of odor fences were installed on their home ranges. The monitored wild boars crossed the area 20.5 ± 9.2 times during the pre-installation period and 19.9 ± 8.4 times after the odor fence installation. Moreover, the average home range varied between 377.9 ± 185.0 ha before and 378.1 ± 142.2 ha after the odor fence installation. Based on GPS telemetry results, we do not support using odor repellent lines for crop protection or for limiting wild boar movement to lessen ASF outbreaks.

• Keywords
• African swine fever, GPS telemetry, crop protection, deterrents,
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH

Human-induced disturbances of the environment are rapid and often unpredictable in space and time, exposing wildlife to strong selection pressure favouring plasticity in specific traits. Measuring wildlife behavioural plasticity in response to human-induced disturbances such as hunting pressures is crucial in understanding population expansion in the highly plastic wild boar species. We collected GPS-based movement data from 55 wild boars during drive hunts over three hunting seasons (2019-2022) in the Czech Republic and Sweden to identify behavioural plasticity in space use and movement strategies over a range of experienced hunting disturbances. Daily distance, daily range, and daily range overlap with hunting area were not affected by hunting intensity but were clearly related to wild boar hunting experience. On average, the post-hunt flight distance was 1.80 km, and the flight duration lasted 25.8 h until they returned to their previous ranging area. We detected no relationship in flight behaviour to hunting intensity or wild boar experience. Wild boar monitored in our study showed two behavioural responses to drive hunts, "remain" or "leave". Wild boars tended to "leave" more often with increasing hunting experience. Overall, this study highlights the behavioural plasticity of wild boar in response to drive hunts.

• Keywords
• Sus scrofa, GPS tracking, Human disturbance, Spatial behaviour,
• MeSH
• Behavior, Animal * physiology   MeSH
• Animals, Wild physiology   MeSH
• Flight, Animal physiology   MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Hunting MeSH
• Sus scrofa * physiology   MeSH
• Animals MeSH
• Check Tag
• Humans MeSH
• Male MeSH
• Animals MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Geographicals
• Czech Republic MeSH
• Sweden MeSH

Sleep serves vital physiological functions, yet how sleep in wild animals is influenced by environmental conditions is poorly understood. Here we use high-resolution biologgers to investigate sleep in wild animals over ecologically relevant time scales and quantify variability between individuals under changing conditions. We developed a robust classification for accelerometer data and measured multiple dimensions of sleep in the wild boar (Sus scrofa) over an annual cycle. In support of the hypothesis that environmental conditions determine thermoregulatory challenges, which regulate sleep, we show that sleep quantity, efficiency and quality are reduced on warmer days, sleep is less fragmented in longer and more humid days, while greater snow cover and rainfall promote sleep quality. Importantly, this longest and most detailed analysis of sleep in wild animals to date reveals large inter- and intra-individual variation. Specifically, short-sleepers sleep up to 46% less than long-sleepers but do not compensate for their short sleep through greater plasticity or quality, suggesting they may pay higher costs of sleep deprivation. Given the major role of sleep in health, our results suggest that global warming and the associated increase in extreme climatic events are likely to negatively impact sleep, and consequently health, in wildlife, particularly in nocturnal animals.

• Keywords
• biologging, double-hierarchical generalized mixed-effects models, pace-of-life syndrome, sleep ecology, wild boar,
• MeSH
• Seasons MeSH
• Sleep * physiology   MeSH
• Sus scrofa * physiology   MeSH
• Environment MeSH
• Animals MeSH
• Check Tag
• Male MeSH
• Female MeSH
• Animals MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH

With the alarming increase in dying trees and massive logging in the Czech forests due to bark beetle infestation, the collection of non-wood forest products, a beneficial recreational activity in the Czech Republic, is now being promoted as an alternative to wood provisioning services. This paper aims to present findings on the non-wood forest product preferences in the country as part of a baseline assessment for promoting the usage. This study relied on the 2019 national survey data of public preferences in collecting forest berries, mushrooms, honey, and medicinal herbs. K-means cluster analysis was employed to classify the respondents. A binary logistic regression with a conditional forward approach was employed to identify the potential predictors of the high preference for each non-wood forest product. Data from 1,050 online respondents were included, and two groups of respondents were clustered based on their preferences for the entire non-wood forest, i.e., higher and lower utilization. The regression analysis revealed that frequent forest visitors were the primary predictor of high utilization of all non-wood forest products (between 1.437 to 4.579 odd ratios), in addition to age, gender, and location of the forest property. By clustering the respondents based on the high and low preferences in utilizing non-wood forest products, the promotion of this service, from recreational to potential livelihood activities and economic benefits, can be better targeted, e.g., target customer, infrastructure development in the location with high preferences, scenarios based on the type of owners (municipal or private forest owners), which in accordance to the national forest policy and laws, and, at the same time, maintain the ecological stability.

• Keywords
• income-generating, non-wood forest product, policy, preference, recreation,
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH