Güldenpfennig Justine, Fattorini Niccolò, Ježek Miloš, Morelle Kevin, Podgórski Tomasz
Department of Game Management and Wildlife Biology, Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Praha, Czech Republic.
Department of Life Sciences, University of Siena, Siena, Italy.
R Soc Open Sci. 2025 Jul 23;12(7):242208. doi: 10.1098/rsos.242208. eCollection 2025 Jul.
Climate change threatens wildlife species, negatively affecting their fitness through environmental change, such as through increased severity of droughts and summer heatwaves. Wild boar (), 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.
气候变化威胁着野生动物物种，通过环境变化对它们的健康产生负面影响，比如干旱和夏季热浪的强度增加。野猪（）是一种生理体温调节能力有限的物种，在夏季可能易受高温影响。然而，对于该物种对热应激的行为反应知之甚少。详细了解野猪对其环境的行为适应可能有助于理解它们未来的种群增长和地理分布范围的变化。我们在捷克共和国对24头野猪个体使用了多感官项圈，将动态身体加速度作为能量消耗的指标，以检测在两个时间尺度（每日和季节性）以及热浪期间，野猪对高温的活动变化响应。我们的结果显示，总体而言，在温度较高时，除非下雨，野猪会减少活动。热浪持续时间并未影响野猪的活动。我们表明，野猪会根据天气状况调整其活动，并强调了充足降水对该物种体温调节的重要性。这表明，关于气候变化对野生动物行为影响的研究不仅应考虑气温上升，还应考虑降雨模式的变化。此外，这项研究展示了遥感技术在监测野生动物行为方面的潜力，特别是在具有挑战性的观测场景中，为野生动物在气候变化面前的行为反应提供了有价值的见解。
