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• Our ABM explains the spatial behaviour of recreationists. • Both shortest-path and weighted-path strategies are used to access recreation areas. • The simulation mimics the recreationists' flow pattern well. • ABM can support the implementation of planned green infrastructure. Modelling and simulating the movement of humans during outdoor nearby recreational activities can deliver important insight into the landscape services available to people in urbanized areas. Recreational activities such as walking, jogging and cycling are known to have a positive effect on people's mental and physical health, however in urban areas access to nearby recreation areas is sometimes lacking, under-developed or impeded by man-made infrastructures. In this context, understanding the spatial behaviour of humans during outdoor recreation is a crucial step towards implementing improvement measures. In this paper, we investigated the recreation strategies of multiple individuals and the flow in the movements of these individuals using a spatially-explicit agent-based model. The model combined information on the available infrastructures (roads, housing areas), the recreational potential of the landscape and rule-based movement strategies mimicking recreationists decision-making. At the individual level, we demonstrated that the shortest-path and weighted-path strategies were used the most during nearby recreation activities. At the population level, we successfully predicted recreationist flow patterns, highlighting gaps in path infrastructure and the most preferred path sections in a small town environment. We further illustrated the versatility of the model and its potential to support planning decisions to increase the accessibility of nearby recreation areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Native species can also exhibit invasive-like spreading patterns, and identifying mechanisms driving spread of native species is a recent but essential challenge in ecology. In Europe, wild boar Sus scrofa populations and range increased for decades. While patterns of population growth are well studied, those related to range expansion are still poorly understood. In this study, we aimed to understand patterns and mechanisms that promoted wild boar population expansion in agricultural landscapes of Southern Belgium between 1981 and 2010. Using hunting-based knowledge on colonization history and an information-theoretic approach, we evaluated support to four a priori hypotheses explaining mechanisms of wild boar colonisation in an agro-ecosystem: natural forested landscape as recolonization mechanism, and cultivated landscape, propagule pressure and climate change as invasion mechanisms. We found that wild boar population expansion in Belgian agroecosystems was a relatively slow process driven by the natural landscape, propagule pressure, and climatic changes. This suggests a combination of invasive and recolonization mechanisms was in play in the expansion of wild boar over the last three decades. Our study provides insights in the mechanisms that enable the species’ recovery in Europe since the mid-20th century, and underline the need for adapted management strategies taking into account the invasive components of wild boar population expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wild boars are distributed almost all over the Earth. Though, Northern Asia remained not inhabited by the species until the end of the 20th century. In the last two decades slowly but surely the wild boar has expanded the northeastern edge of its range to the northern border of the taiga. Investigating environmental factors that underlie range expansions is crucial for understanding its mechanism and predict future changes in species distribution and biodiversity. Here we investigated the distribution of wild boar in its northeastern range, comparing the role of habitat and climate variables at three spatial scales: the permanently occupied area, the area of potential expansion and the total area. We have shown that along the gradient of wild boar occupancy (from permanently to sporadically occupied to presently unoccupied) the importance of habitat variables decreases while importance of climatic variables increases. Our analysis suggests that the potential range increase of the species results from the combined effect of habitat and climatic variables. A possibility for future expansion, however, is rather related to climate change (particularly to the increase of temperature at high latitudes) than to the alteration of habitat or shifts in resource use. Unlabelled Image • Wild boar continues expanding in north-western Asia. • In areas permanently inhabited by wild boar, habitat covariates play a marked role. • At the edge of distribution, mostly climatic variables contribute. • Results highlight the risk of further wild boar expansion under climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]