Morelle K.
Over the time, ungulates have seen their populations continuously changing under the effect of direct, i.e. hunting pressure, and indirect, i.e. land-use changes, human activities. Under control until recently, ungulates have progressively adapted to these modi cations and are now able to cope with human-shaped environments, consequently their number and range have greatly and worryingly increased. More particularly, among ungulates species, the wild boar Sus scrofa raises important concerns due to its environmental, economic and social impacts on modern societies. Understanding the ecology of ungulates species and their ability to survive within highly dynamic and seasonal ecosystems, such as agricultural environment, is thus necessary to better mitigate their negative impacts and to sustainably manage growing and expanding populations. Although only recently studied, movement ecology of animal is an important species trait that allows animal to adapt to rapid environmental changes. Considering movement as the resulting interaction of the animal’s internal state, navigation and motion capacity as well as of the e ect of the surrounding environment (“external factors”), provides a clear conceptual framework enabling to study patterns, mechanisms and processes, such as coping with land-use changes. In this thesis, we study the case of an expanding wild boar population in Southern Belgium and consider the movement ecology of the species to understand how wild boar colonize and ourish in agroecosystems. More speci cally, the thesis aims at i) reviewing quantitatively and qualitatively the scienti c literature about wild boar movement ecology, and ii) analyzing the spatial response of wild boar to agroecosystems in terms of movement and habitat selection across three spatial and temporal scales. The literature review highlights that wild boar is the least studied ungulates species in terms of movement ecology.We suggest that this is likely due i) to the relative complexity of tting tracking devices to this species, and ii) to its generalist diet making the species not suitable to test foraging hypotheses. Among existing studies, a large part focuses on the role of external factors (e.g. hunting, landscape features) on movement while others components of the movement ecology framework (internal state, navigation and motion capacity) remain poorly studied. However, when assuming behavioral similarity between wild and domestic boars, experimental studies on captive animals show how wild boar can develop complex movement strategies by using their highly developed cognitive and sensory abilities, and spatial memory. The spatio-temporal analysis suggests a scale-speci c response of wild boar to agricultural habitat. At the intermediate scale (landscape, seasonal), wild boar uses seasonal habitat shift strategies towards agricultural areas, while at broader scale (regional, decades), wild boar avoids this habitat, preferring the forest habitat to spread and extend its occupancy range. This results in a contradiction with our preliminary hypothesis that increased area of cultivations providing cover (maize, rapeseed, cereals) facilitates wild boar population expansion. Furthermore, we show that besides the use of forest habitat, high population density is a major driving factor of the colonization of agroecosystems by wild boar. The ne-scale analysis (home range, daily), highlights the large variety of spatial behaviors (area restricted search, central place foraging, nomadism, dispersing) wild boar is able to use to cope with heterogeneous environments. In terms of management of the species, the results of this thesis suggest that it is required to lower the population density in order to limit the population spread into agroecosystems, not only at the margin of expansion but all over the species’ range. Furthermore, we recommend developing more exible control strategies taking into account both the spatial abilities of the species and the complexity and dynamics of the environment. For example, the creation of a seasonal landscape of fear could be promoted, i.e. reducing attractivity of agricultural lands by increasing risk sensation (e.g. hunting with dogs all along the growing season). However, in our opinion, the success of any management strategy requires rst to tackle the issue of the decreasing number of hunters observed in large part of Europe and to improve communication among the di erent stakeholders (hunting associations, farmers, public administration). Indeed, while ungulates have progressively adapted to human-induced changes, the capacity of humans to adapt to this new human-ungulate relation is questionable.
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