Stoakley Travis E, Zenas Stephen J, Brown Vienna R, Smith Mark D, Gulsby William D, Collier Bret A, Ditchkoff Stephen S
College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment Auburn University Auburn Alabama USA.
United States Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Wildlife Services, National Feral Swine Damage Management Program National Wildlife Research Center Fort Collins Colorado USA.
Ecol Evol. 2025 May 6;15(5):e71403. doi: 10.1002/ece3.71403. eCollection 2025 May.
Wild pigs () affect native flora and fauna in the areas they invade, including ground-nesting birds. While results from camera-based studies have suggested that wild pigs could spatiotemporally impact resource selection of wild turkeys (), there has yet to be published a foundational mechanism proposed to support such impact. Additionally, while the autumn and winter seasons serve as an important period for improving body condition for spring breeders like wild turkeys, there exists a knowledge gap in the literature with respect to potential impacts of wild pigs on wild turkeys during this non-breeding period. We proposed a novel methodology for exploring the spatiotemporal relationship between wild pigs and wild turkeys through the co-employment of a camera survey to estimate wild pig activity and GPS units to monitor wild turkey space use. Our study monitored 12 wild turkeys across a 9000-ha study area in east-central Alabama during the autumn and winter seasons. We hypothesized that wild turkeys would exhibit reduced use and altered movement rates in areas with greater wild pig activity. Our results suggested that wild turkeys displayed slower rates of movement and had lower predicted probabilities of daytime use and roost site selection in areas of greater wild pig activity. Our study was limited to one season, but paired with previous camera-based studies, we propose that wild pigs could serve as a perceived disturbance risk to wild turkeys, leading to avoidance of areas with greater wild pig activity. We also believe wild pigs could compete with wild turkeys for hard mast, which could explain the negative relationship between wild pig activity and predicted probabilities of daytime use among female wild turkeys in hardwood and riparian areas. Our study showcases the potential value in pairing multiple spatiotemporal data types (e.g., GPS-data and camera-based estimates) in future interspecific wildlife research.
野猪会对它们入侵的地区的本地动植物造成影响，包括地面筑巢的鸟类。虽然基于摄像头的研究结果表明，野猪可能会在时空上影响野火鸡的资源选择，但尚未有已发表的基础机制来支持这种影响。此外，虽然秋冬季节对于像野火鸡这样的春季繁殖者改善身体状况来说是一个重要时期，但在文献中关于野猪在这个非繁殖期对野火鸡的潜在影响方面存在知识空白。我们提出了一种新颖的方法，通过联合使用摄像头调查来估计野猪活动以及GPS设备来监测野火鸡的空间利用情况，以探索野猪和野火鸡之间的时空关系。我们的研究在阿拉巴马州中东部一个9000公顷的研究区域内，于秋冬季节对12只野火鸡进行了监测。我们假设在野猪活动较多的区域，野火鸡的使用频率会降低且移动速度会改变。我们的结果表明，在野猪活动较多的区域，野火鸡的移动速度较慢，白天使用区域和栖息地选择的预测概率较低。我们的研究仅限于一个季节，但结合之前基于摄像头的研究，我们认为野猪可能会被野火鸡视为一种干扰风险，从而导致它们避开野猪活动较多的区域。我们还认为野猪可能会与野火鸡争夺硬实坚果，这可以解释在硬木林和河岸地区，野猪活动与雌性野火鸡白天使用区域的预测概率之间的负相关关系。我们的研究展示了在未来种间野生动物研究中配对多种时空数据类型（如GPS数据和基于摄像头的估计数据）的潜在价值。
