DOI: 10.5061/dryad.v41ns1s6p
title: Data from: Impact of hunting modality on social contacts in wild boar populations across Europe

description: Variation in animal social interactions emerges from individual responses
 to social and physical environments and plays a key role in shaping
 pathogen transmission, gene flow, and information transfer. Although
 hunting can induce changes in contact patterns through disruption of the
 social environment, the non-consumptive effects of hunting have not
 received much attention compared to the demographic effects of harvest. We
 examined the effects of hunting activities on contact rates in wild boar,
 a species particularly exposed to social disruptions owing to its high
 sociality and intense management. Using GPS-telemetry data from 21
 populations across Europe (435 unique dyads), we analysed how hunting
 activities impact social contacts within and between wild boar groups
 while accounting for confounders potentially shaping contact heterogeneity
 (e.g., habitat productivity, population density, predation, seasonality,
 individuals’ sex, and spatial proximity). We found that drive hunts, but
 not individual hunts, lowered contact rates within wild boar
 groups. Contact rates tended to be negatively related to drive hunts’
 frequency. We did not observe the effect of hunting mode on contact rates
 between members of different groups, which was mainly shaped by a positive
 relationship with spatial proximity. Contact probability among females
 from different groups was lower compared to male-male or mixed-sex dyads.
 Our study showcases how hunting disturbance influences social contact
 rates in a group-living wild mammal. Along with other biotic and abiotic
 drivers, hunting modality plays a significant role in shaping intra-group,
 but not inter-group, contacts. Reduced group cohesion induced by drive
 hunts could negatively impact survival, foraging efficiency, and resource
 utilization. Hunting management could mitigate those negative impacts by
 spatially spreading driven areas throughout the season and targeting
 different groups each time. Our results suggest that hunting disturbances
 should not enhance disease spread through increased inter-group contacts.
 Yet, hunting-induced escape movements could still pose a risk of
 transmission into new areas. Inter-group connectedness appeared to be
 maintained predominantly by males, which could be targeted if disease
 transmission was a major management objective. Spatial proximity between
 individuals can be a reliable index of the amount of direct contact within
 wild boar populations.
description: # Data from: Impact of hunting modality on social contacts in wild boar
 populations across Europe Dataset DOI:
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.v41ns1s6p](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.v41ns1s6p) ## Description of the data and file structure Animal location (GPS fixes) data were collected within a framework of various research projects conducted independently across the study areas and deposited at the common data sharing platform - EUROBOAR. Based on the GPS fixes, association indices (Simple Ratio Index) were calculated specifically for this project. Index of dyadic contact intensity based on GPS-telemetry animal locations (spatio-temporal proximity) ### Files and variables #### File: Additional_data.csv **Description:** The table contains study site-specific information added in the revised models ##### Variables * area_name (name of the study site) * Wildboardensity_Pittiglio (population density as retrieved from Pittiglio et al. (2018) per study site) * Hunting_index (number of hunted wild boar, inds/km2) * Hunting_index_imputed (as above ,except for the data of Elfingen, Switzerland, imputed relevant data by exploiting the strong relationship between this index and the predicted wild boar density from Pittiglio et al. (2018) * Mean_daily_precip (mean daily precipitation across the year, in millimeters) * Mean_daily_T (mean daily temperature across the year, in degrees Celsius) * Mean_annual_NPP (mean productivity index across the year) * N_other_ungulates (number of other ungulate species in the study area) * Wolf_STUDYAREA (presence or absence of wolves in the study area) * drive_hunts_STUDYAREA (presence or absence of wild boar drive hunts in the study area) * drive_hunt_frequency_STUDYAREA (average number of drive hunts per month across the hunting season) * no_hunters_drive_STUDYAREA (average number of hunters and beaters in a drive hunt) * NA = not available; data could not be obtained for the study areas #### File: euroboar_full_data.csv **Description:** The table contains information on the monthly dyadic association index (Simple Ratio Index - SRI) and auxiliary data on each dyad  ##### Variables * ID1, ID2 (identity of individuals forming a dyad) * age*ID1, age*ID2 (age class of the individuals) * sex*ID1, sex*ID2 (sex of the individuals) * sex_pair (sex similarity of the dyad, m: both males, f: both females, mix: mixed sex dyad) * pair_ID (combined IDs of the individuals forming a dyad) * area_name, country (name and country of the study area) * year_month (year and month for which SRI is calculated) * season3 (seasonal categorization used in the paper) * cluster_class (group membership of the individuals from the dyad; same (within-group) or different (between-group) group * SRI_5min (monthly simple ratio index of the dyad) * SRI_5min_binom_all (binomial representation of the monthly SRI; 0: no contact, 1: contact) * overlap (overlap of the monthly utilization distributions of the two individuals from the dyad) * centr_dist (distance between centroids of the monthly home ranges of the dyad) * drive_boar (presence (1) or absence (0) of the drive hunt in a given month) * hunt_boar (wild boar hunting occurring in a given month) * boar_hunt_mode2 (hunting modality (single, drive, no hunt) in a given month) * hunt_index (number of wild boar hunted per square kilometer) * wolf (wolf presence or absence) * NA - not available; data could not be obtained from the field #### File: contact_rates_hunt_days.csv **Description:** The table contains information on the daily dyadic association index (Simple Ratio Index - SRI) and auxiliary data on each dyad  ##### Variables * date (day for which dyadic SRI was calculated) * hunt (presence (1) or absence (0) of the drive hunt on a given day) * area_name  * overlap_drive_ID1; overlap_drive_ID2 (amount of overlap of the daily home range of individual 1 and 2, respectively, with a driven area) * ID1, ID2 (identities of individual 1 and 2, respectively) * ID1_overlap, ID2_overlap (binomial representation of the overlap of the daily home range of individual 1 and 2, respectively, with a driven area) * pair_overlap_drive (indicates if both individuals from the dyad overlapped with a driven area) * NA = not applicable; values do apply for non-hunting days * The other variables are the same as in the full data table (euroboar_full_data.csv) ## Code/software Microsoft Excel can be used to view the files