Le sanglier en Europe: Une menace pour la biodiversité ?

Abstract

This study is centred on wild boar (Sus scrofa scrofa and Sus scrofa meridionalis) in its natural habitat and aims to answer the question: does wild boar impact biodiversity in its temperate natural habitat and how? Native wild boar can impact all environmental components: vegetation, soil properties, fauna, fungi and aquatic habitats. Existing studies demonstrate that wild boar is an important seed consumer, reducing the abundance of seedlings and saplings and acting as a long distance dispersal agent. Other impacts such as modification in plant species richness and diversity, individual fitness, soil seed bank, invasive species dispersion or plant cover and biomass were described but their importance is debated. Wild boar impacts mainly fauna through direct predation and habitat disturbance. It could also impact soil chemical, biological and physical properties, but results on this aspect are scarce and contradictory. Finally wild boar impacts on fungi or aquatic habitats have been described but insufficiently investigated. Only some of these impacts were quantified. In addition, wild boar impacts on biodiversity were mostly described in places heavily populated by the species. These results need to be completed with studies conducted in places with lower abundance to more accurately assess the “negativity” or “positivity” of wild boar impacts on biodiversity.