DOI: 10.5061/dryad.4mw6m90nt
title: Hunting, but not outdoor recreation, modulates behavioural tolerance to human disturbance in Alpine marmots Marmota marmota

description: Humans are often perceived as predators by free-living animals, and thus,
 even non-consumptive human activities such as outdoor recreation may
 trigger behavioural and physiological responses, often with negative
 consequences on individual fitness and population persistence.
 Nonetheless, there is growing evidence that wildlife can also have
 remarkable behavioural tolerance, but no clear picture has yet emerged
 regarding the mechanisms explaining different responses to humans. We
 investigated the effect of different types of human activity – hunting and
 outdoor recreation – on behavioural tolerance to humans in Alpine marmots
 Marmota marmota. Marmots were studied in areas with contrasting protection
 regimes and under different levels of outdoor recreation in Northern Italy
 over three seasons (2021-2023). Flight initiation distance (i.e. the
 distance at which an animal escapes from an approaching person) was used
 as a proxy of tolerance to human disturbance and tested against levels of
 outdoor recreation and hunting using linear mixed modelling. Marmots were
 more sensitive to human disturbance in hunted as compared to protected
 areas, whereas we did not find evidence for changes in behavioural
 tolerance when exposed to varying levels of outdoor recreation. In turn,
 our study suggests that hunting, by reducing behavioural tolerance to
 humans, could exacerbate the negative effects of non-lethal human
 activities on wildlife. This has implications for conservation and
 management strategies aimed at promoting coexistence in human-altered
 landscapes.
description: # Data for: Hunting, but not outdoor recreation, modulates behavioural
 tolerance to human disturbance in Alpine marmots Marmota marmota ##
 Description of the data and file structure Data used for the Analysis for
 the article “Hunting, but not outdoor recreation, modulates behavioural
 tolerance to human disturbance in Alpine marmots Marmota marmota"
 published in Wildlife Biology (2025). **Principal Investigator:**
 Friederike Zenth,
 [friederike.zenth92@gmail.com](mailto:friederike.zenth92@gmail.com) ###
 Files and variables #### File: Zenth.et.al.2025\_marmot.fid.csv
 **Description:** Data used for the Analysis for the article “Hunting, but
 not outdoor recreation, modulates behavioural tolerance to human
 disturbance in Alpine marmots Marmota marmota" published in Wildlife
 Biology (2025). ##### Variables * id_fid: unique identifier for each
 contucted flight-initiation-distance(fid) test * date: date of the fid
 test * jdate: Julian day of the fid test * time: time of the day of the
 fid test * year: year of the fid test * uid : unique ID of the marmot test
 subject * family: marmot family group name of the test subject *
 fid_y_latitude: latitude coordinate of the location of the fid test *
 fid_x_longitude: longitude coordinate of the location of the fid test *
 studyarea: name of the study area (se = Seiser Alm, Bozen, IT; pns =
 Stelvio National Park, SO, IT) * capture: factor with two levels
 indicating whether a marmot was previously captured and marked or not *
 experimenter: name of the person who observed the test subject and scored
 behaviour during an fid test. * walker: name of the person who approached
 the marmot during the fid test * sex: sex of the marmot test subject (m =
 male; f = female) * age_class: age class of the marmot test subhect (1yo
 &lt;= 1 years old; ad &gt; 1 years old). * consp.5tot: number of
 conspecifics within 5 m of the marmot test subject at the start of the fid
 test * behavior: behaviour of the marmot test subject at the start of the
 fid test (forage = marmot foraging, rest = marmot resting, medium_act =
 marmot engaged in any other activity but foraging or resting). * fid.1:
 distance in meters between the walker and the marmot test subject at which
 the marmot initiated a flight for the first time during the test *
 burrow_distance = distance between the initial position of the marmot test
 subject and the burrow into which it fled from the walker during the fid
 test * angle: angle in which the walker approached the marmot during the
 fid test (flat = walker approached in flat terrain, up = walker approached
 the marmot walking up a slope (i.e. up a hill in mountainous terrain)
 towards the marmot, down = walker approached the marmot walking slightly
 down a slope. * ac.consp = alarm calling of conspecifics during an fid
 test (0 = no alarm calling of conspecifics; 1 = alarm calling of
 conspecifics recorded) * past_hunt_kde = kernel density estimate of past
 hunting intensity around the fid test * past_hunt_kde = kernel density
 estimate of current hunting intensity around the fid test * COI =
 cumulated outdoor activity index (0 = no activity, 1 = highest comparable
 activity in the area) Csv. file which can be viewed in Microsoft Excel
 or R 4.3.1 (R Core Team 2023) in RStudio 2023.09.1+494 (Posit Team 2023).