EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Boar in the Meadow

Indian Boar (Sus scrofa cristatus), Family Suidae
Kaziranga National Park, Assam, India

Explanation:  While exploring Kaziranga National Park in Assam, northeast India, we happened upon this singular of wild Indian boar out digging for roots and bulbs and tubers in this open field.  And doing what they do ... 

... which means performing some important key ecological functions for the ecosystem.  

These functions include helping to incorporate organic matter into the topsoil by digging through the root system, thereby improving soil structure and productivity ... and not to mention (OK, I will) also depositing their fecal matter into the soil as a nutrient source.  

Boar also create and maintain wallows of saturated wetlands that, in turn, can provide habitat for a wide variety of other wildlife such as shorebirds, cranes, ducks, and much more.  

Wild boar also can have adverse effects on ecosystems, as sometimes their diggings induce unwanted soil erosion, and they can deplete areas of viable plant seeds.  

Further, they can carry parasites that transmit to other animals, including humans.  

And they can be vicious when provoked.  
  

The foraging by boars leaves behind a series of diggings, which can be a useful indicator of boar population abundance.

But these diggings can be a nuisance for other users of the meadow, shown below ... 


... Here, local herders tend to their domestic livestock in the same fields where those boar diggings can entrap hooves and break legs.  It can be a tenuous balance between humans, boar, farm stock, and nature!

Information:
    Bueno, C.G., I.C. Barrio, R. García-González, C.L. Alados, and D. Gómez-García.  2010.  Does wild board rooting affect livestock grazing areas in alpine grasslands?  European Journal of Wildlife Research 56:765-770.
    Higashide, D., T. Kuriyama, S. Takagi, Y. Nakashima, K. Fukasawa, G. Yajima, M. Kasada, and M. Yokoyama.  2021.  Effectiveness of signs of activity as relative abundance indices for wild boar.  Wildlife Biology 2021(4):wlb.00869.
    Vijayan, S., and B.P. Pati.  2002.  Impact of changing cropping patterns on man-animal conflicts around Gir Protected Area with specific reference to Talala Sub-District, Gujarat, India.  Population and Environment 23:541-559.