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The European population of wild boars has increased considerably since the 1960s, leading to increased damage to agroecosystems. Their distribution coincides with the natural distribution of the most important commercial Tuber species. In this chapter, the truffle/wild boar interrelationships are discussed and include the importance of truffles in their diet, their role in spore dispersal, and their impact on cultivated truffières. Wild boars eat a wide variety of foods: plant matter, animals, fungi, bulbs, tubers, and roots. Analyses of their feces and stomach contents suggest they can be considered casual or opportunistic mycophagists, with fungal consumption simply dependent on the availability of other foods. The ingestion of hypogeous fungi is more frequent than that of epigeous mushrooms. Their rooting behavior primarily reduces plant cover and diversity, affects the first 15–70 cm of the litter layer, and can damage up to 80 % of the forest soil surface. Excavation may cause great economic losses to cultivated truffières, not only in terms of truffle predation but also through soil disturbance so that there can be significant increases in truffle production after fencing cultivated truffières damaged by wild boars. Because wild boars can move as much as 15 km in a day, they efficiently contribute to long-distance dispersal of truffle spores. Moreover, the action of the degradation of the digestive enzymes on asci and spore wall improves germination and the ability to form ectomycorrhizas and results in wild boars playing a pivotal role in truffle colonization of new habitats

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Truffles, as hypogeous, ectomycorrhizal fungi, have no means to actively discharge spores into the environment and thus depend on mycophagists for spore dispersal. After consumption of fruiting bodies by animals and passage through the digestive tract, the spores are released in faecal pellets. Recently, in the Abruzzo region (Italy), Hystrix cristata has been spotted inside private truffières, but its role in spore dispersal has never been investigated. Here, we report our research on the occurrence of Tuber aestivum spores in porcupine's faecal contents in a truffière in L'Aquila, Italy, where a H. cristata specimen was photographed. The spores were isolated from faeces by using a suspension of 0.7 M ZnSO. We also verified degradation and disfiguration of the digested spores' reticular ornamentation compared to that of fresh spores from ascomata collected inside the truffière, through measurements performed by scanning electron microscopy. A few truffle spores had germinated within the faeces.

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