Worse Sleep and Increased Energy Expenditure Yet No Movement Changes in Sub-Urban Wild Boar Experiencing an Influx of Human Visitors (Anthropulse) During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Sleep in the wild: the importance of individual effects and environmental conditions on sleep behaviour in wild boar

“…Thus, to assess whether predation risk affects sleep in wild animals, targeted studies with high resolution data at short temporal scales are needed, for example with data on where and when predators move relative to prey, and where and when predation events occur. Likewise, behavioural responses to short-lived changes in human activity are difficult to detect and are often context-dependent, thus only fine-scale approaches can reveal these effects [31,70].…”

“…We did not detect any influence of the arrival of wolves and human visitation on sleep in wild boar. However, this is likely due to the fact that changes in sleep due to predation risk or human disturbance occur are brief and occur at very short temporal scales [31,32]. Thus, to assess whether predation risk affects sleep in wild animals, targeted studies with high resolution data at short temporal scales are needed, for example with data on where and when predators move relative to prey, and where and when predation events occur.…”

“…We coded as ‘wolf presence’ at Doupov from December 2020 onwards, and coded Doupov prior to this date and Kostolec as ‘wolf absence’. We controlled for the possible influence of human presence on sleep [31] by including as a fixed effect the total daily number of visitors recorded with an automated counter (Mobile multi, Eco-Compteur) [52] at Kostelec. The number of visitors at Doupov was coded 0, as this area is closed to the public.…”

“…However, whether plasticity in circadian type affects sleep quantity, efficiency and quality is currently unknown. Furthermore, sleep in wild animals may be affected by human disturbance [31], particularly in nocturnally active species and by predation risk [13,32].…”

“…Because boar also adjust their activity levels with changing environmental conditions [45,46] we predict that individuals concentrating sleep during light hours sleep longer than those that acquire some of their sleep during darkness. Lastly, we predict that TST and the duration of the longest bout decrease, while fragmentation increases, with disturbance by more human visitors [31] and the presence of wolves.…”