Understanding habitat co-occurrence and the potential for competition between native mammals and invasive wild pigs at the northern edge of their range

Invasive species are a major contributor to biodiversity loss worldwide. Wild pigs (Sus scrofa (L., 1758)) are highly invasive in their introduced ranges; they modify habitat and threaten native species. As recent invaders in Canada, it is unknown what habitats wild pigs occupy at the northern edge of their range and how they affect mammalian diversity. We examined habitat factors that we predicted would affect wild pigs’ co-occurrence with native mammals. We randomly placed 17 camera traps in 4 stratified habitat types (deciduous forest, grassland, cropland, and wetland) for two years to examine species co-occurrence in these habitats. We analyzed camera-trap data using non-metric multidimensional scaling. Wild pig detection during winter was greatest in wetland and cropland and positively associated with occurrence of moose (Alces alces (L., 1758)) and coyote (Canis latrans (Say, 1823)) and negatively associated with the presence of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus (Zimmerman, 1780)), mule deer...