Crowded mountains: Long-term effects of human outdoor recreation on a community of wild mammals monitored with systematic camera trapping.

Abstract

Outdoor recreation in natural areas has become an increasingly popular activity globally, yet the long-term effects on wildlife are poorly known. Reconciling human access to nature and wildlife conservation requires sound evaluations of how outdoor activities affect biodiversity inspace and time. We aimed to contribute to this topic by asking whether tourism in the world-renown Dolomites, Italy, affected wild mammals in the long term, and if it elicited spatial or temporal avoidance. We detected mammals by systematic camera trapping over seven consecutive summers at 60, consistently sampled, sites, and estimated trends in occurrence at community and species levels through a dynamic community occupancy model, combined with site use intensity and an index of nocturnality. Overall, 70% of the 520 000 images obtained depicted humans, whose presence intensified over the 7-year period. Nonetheless, both community and most species-level occurrences increased. However, human activities caused a strong temporal avoidance in the whole community, especially in most disturbed sites, while spatial avoidance was observed only for bigger-sized species.