Invasive wild boars and native mammals in agroecosystems in the Atlantic Forest of Western Brazil

Abstract

The objective of this work was to estimate an index of the relative biomass per species, in a medium to large-sized mammal community, as well as to determine how the introduced wild boar (Sus scrofa) fits into this index, and to verify if the occupancy of sites by domestic dogs interferes with those of wild boars and how much the periods of dogs’ activity overlap those of wild boars. The biomass/effort index was measured for each native mammal species and for the introduced wild boar, in two surveyed farms in Brazil’s Western Atlantic Forest range, through the use of camera trappings that were also used to verify if dogs and wild boar overlap in space and activity time. Wild boars seem to dominate the community, just a few years after their presence was first recorded in the region. Surprisingly, several native endangered mammal species persist in the highly modified landscape of the studied areas, but their population trends are still unknown. Wild boars and dogs generally occupy the same areas; however, they do not overlap in activity time, which is an indicative that it is unlikely that the dogs can effectively protect the crops.

Quantifying bite force in coexisting tayassuids and feral suids: a comparison between morphometric functional proxies andin vivomeasurements

“…We presented for the first time the actual magnitude of the bite forces of wild collared and white-lipped peccaries and feral hogs in their own habitat in the Brazilian Pantanal. The impact of non-domestic pig morphotypes is a recurrent issue in several places worldwide, particularly in Brazil, where they are in several biomes (e.g., Ilse & Hellgren, 1995;Gabor & Hellgren, 2000;Salvador, 2017;Cervo & Guadagnin, 2020;Doutel-Ribas et al, 2019). Although the main aim of the present study was not to discuss the ecological implications of bite force differences among those species (this subject was already addressed by our team and some other authors in previous works), the in vivo results of the species' bite force in the field validated those morphometric-proxies-based assessments.…”

Crop damage by vertebrates in Latin America: current knowledge and potential future management directions

“…They can have deleterious effects on native biodiversity around the globe, even driving some species to extinction ( Risch, Ringma & Price, 2021 ). In our review, all studies focusing on wild boars were from Brazil, where boars have been found to dominate local communities shortly after the invasion ( Doutel-Ribas et al, 2019 ) and consume large amounts of cultivated grain ( Cervo & Guadagnin, 2020 ). Lethal methods for wild boar control have been legal in the country since 2013, and hunting has become widespread ( Rosa, Wallau & Pedrosa, 2018 ).…”

Wild boar recognition using convolutional neural networks

“…Wild boars spread diseases, 4 are a threat to native species, 5 and destroy natural habitats by destabilizing river banks, thus reducing water flow. In addition, they have become an economic problem as they are able to damage large crops 6 …”