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Consistently high multiple paternity rates in five wild boar populations despite varying hunting pressures

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Abstract

Intraspecific variations in mating systems have been reported in numerous species, especially when they live in varying ecological contexts. This leads to variability between populations with regard to the proportion of females engaging in multiple male mating, which depends on the number of males available. For hunted ungulate species, hunting is known to influence population structure, especially when males are preferentially targeted for trophy hunting. Here, we investigated how variations in hunting pressure and the yearly proportion of heavy males removed have impacted multiple paternity rates in five wild boar (Sus scrofa scrofa) populations located in similar ecological contexts. We found high rates of multiple paternity in all studied populations, confirming the recently reported promiscuous mating system of wild boar. However, variations in hunting pressure and removal of heavy males did not significantly influence multiple paternity rates, contrary to our expectation. Nonetheless, a slight tendency for a decreasing multiple paternity rate with increasing hunting pressure and for increasing multiple paternity rate with increasing removal of heavy males from the population was detected. Based on these results, we discuss an alternative hypothesis on the ecological processes sustaining the influence of hunting regimes on the mating system. Overall, hunting pressure and management rules might be sufficient to disrupt the mating system in any of the populations, so it is important to continue the sampling of wild boar populations at the European scale, especially in populations with little hunting pressure.

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All data and material are available upon request to the authors.

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R codes and Software procedure are available upon request to the authors.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to all the people who helped collect harvested wild boars in the different study sites over the year. We thank the ONF, and F. Jehlé, who allowed us to work on the Châteauvillain population. We also thank the Domaine National de Chambord which allowed us to work on the Chambord population, the François Sommer foundation and E. Richard who supervised data collection and supported data analysis in Belval and Chambord. We are thankful to all members of the OFB (French office of biodiversity) involved in data collection at the different study sites and to D. Pierrard for genetic sampling in Belval. We thank C. Regis for her help in the acquisition of genetic data and D. Mirat who kindly edited the English language. This work was supported by the OFB and the University of Lyon. OFB also contributed by supporting TG, with a Ph.D. fellowship. COLONY analyses were performed using the computing facilities of the CC LBBE/PRABI.

Funding

The study was funded by the French Biodiversity Agency (OFB) and the Biometry and Evolutionary Lab.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive, Univ Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, CNRS, 69100, Villeurbanne, France

    Thibault Gayet, Ludovic Say & Sébastien Devillard

  2. Office Français de la Biodiversité, DRAS-Unité Ongulés Sauvages, Monfort, 01330, Birieux, France

    Thibault Gayet & Eric Baubet

Authors
  1. Thibault Gayet
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  2. Ludovic Say
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  3. Eric Baubet
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  4. Sébastien Devillard
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Contributions

EB, LS and SD designed the research. EB and TG performed the field work. LS performed the molecular analysis. TG, LS and SD performed the statistical analyses. TG, LS, EB and SD drafted the manuscript. All authors reviewed the draft of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Sébastien Devillard.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest nor competing interest.

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All procedures were approved by the French Ministry of Agriculture.

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Gayet, T., Say, L., Baubet, E. et al. Consistently high multiple paternity rates in five wild boar populations despite varying hunting pressures. Mamm Biol 101, 321–327 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42991-020-00090-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42991-020-00090-2

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