Does wild boar rooting affect spatial distribution of active burrows of meadow-dwelling voles?

Soil overturn by wild boar Sus scrofa is known to affect biodiversity, from plant communities to invertebrates, reptiles and smallmammals. Rooting activity has been shown to be particularly intensive in open areas and particularly on fallows and meadowslocated on hill or mountain tops. In these habitat types, the impact of wild boar on small mammal assemblies has never beenassessed. In this work, we evaluated whether rooting activity affected the spatial distribution of the Savi's pine vole Microtussavii in a hilly area of Central Italy, throughout four seasons. The spatial distribution of this vole has been determined through theopen-hole index, i.e. by assessing the vole propensity to reopen tunnel entrances which we previously closed with soil. Rootingintensity was the highest in cold months, i.e. when drive hunting may increase wild boar occurrence within protected areas andoutside wooded areas. According to our GLMM, reopening of vole burrow entrances increased with increasing distances fromrooted areas and with increasing geophytic diversity. Meadow-dwelling voles living on shallow underground burrow systemsseem to avoid soil overturn by wild boar and that they prefer creating their tunnels where plant diversity building up the staple oftheir diet is the highest. Our results furtherly emphasized the importance of wild boar monitoring also in open areas and hillgrasslands, particularly when rooting intensity is the highest, i.e. in cold months.