WILD BOAR INVASION TREATS BIODIVERSITY IN MEDITERRANEAN NATIONAL PARKS

The Wild Boar (Sus scrofa) is the most-widely distributed ungulate of the world. Since the 1960s, wild boars went through a worldwide population expansion that increased their overall geographic distribution as well as their population density in many areas in Europe. For example studies documented an increase of wild boar hunting bag by 540% during 1960 - 2002 in Northern Germany, meanwhile in France by 500% during the 1973 - 1993, and in the next five years by an additional 900%. The widespread increase in numbers and geographica l range of this species might have a remarkable impact on many plant communities and animal species, habitat structure and crop and livestock production. The Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park has instituted in the 1995 in the hotspot of Mediterranea n region. From this period the administration of Park has refunded, to the local communities, some of the damage declared for the agricultural or traditional manufacture constructions imputable to wild boar actions. Just at the end of 2009 National Park go vernance started an organic plan to manage the wild boar problem, in collaboration with University of Naples Federico II. Here we report this action plan, arisen from an interdisciplinary approach in consideration of all the components that are associated to this problem. We developed simulation of population dynamics in the national park, as well as to verify the effectiveness of the management operations in progress throughout the action planed. We analysed the population genetic characteristic, in the li ght of European wild boar phylogenesis and human translocation, hybridization with the domestic form and their effect on the wild populations. We evaluated also population structure arising from this overpopulation. The lack of natural predators, the eleva ted environmental plasticity, and peculiar reproductive biology of some hybrid populations would seem concomitant causes of the high density both in natural and anthropic areas. Moreover wild boar ecological invasion can create problem to some critical spe cies like as orchids, birds nesting on ground (i.e. Alectoris graeca ) or lizards ( Podarcis sicula ). Wild boar problem involves progressively many protected areas in Italy and the divulgation of a scientific management can represent key factor for an organic approach and a prompt for research in conservation biology.