The effect of hunter-wild boar interactions and landscape heterogeneity on wild boar population size: A simulation study

Abstract

In recent years, wild boar (Sus scrofa) populations have increased rapidly, causing serious problems such as crop damage and disease transmission. In the present study, we built an individual-based model to explore how heterogeneous landscapes and the interactions of wild boars and hunters affect wild boar population control. The simulated wild boars in the model move on a heterogeneous landscape. To make the movement more realistic, we included randomness in the simulated boar behavior. The simulated hunters either walk to move one site during a one-time step or jump to move multiple sites at once. Simulation results showed that the randomness positively contributed to the increase in population size, while the remaining variables contributed negatively. The randomness had the greatest impact on population size, followed by the landscape heterogeneity and the hunting success probability. On the other hand, the jumping movement probability had the least effect. Interestingly, the effect of jumping on the population size could be understood as a result of two effects cancelling one another; the hunters are trapped in the preferred area, and the hunters move to another area without removing all simulated boars gathered in the preferred area. Furthermore, we briefly mentioned which ecological approaches can be used to control wild boar population growth with regard to our simulation results and proposed some ideas to improve the model and make it more realistic.