Who matters most? Humans and golden jackal (Canis aureus) affect spatio-temporal levels in a mammalian community without large carnivores

In the Anthropocene, humans act as superpredators influencing spatio-temporal interactions between prey and predators. Recently, hierarchical models have been proposed as useful approaches to study and compare wildlife activity patterns as a function of biotic and abiotic covariates. We applied such models to understand spatio-temporal patterns of golden jackals (Canis aureus) and sympatric species in the core area of Italian jackal population, within sites lacking the permanent presence of large carnivores. We analysed data from 134 camera-trap locations along two years in 2023–2025 (6,319 trap-days) to assess if golden jackal activity level and shape were related to the number hiker and hunter sequences. Moreover, we tested the same covariates, along with golden jackal sequences, for roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), brown hare (Lepus europaeus), red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and wild boar (Sus scrofa) activity levels and shape. We hypothesized that all investigated species would change their activity levels to avoid areas with higher hiker and hunter activities. Moreover, we hypothesized that jackal’s prey and competitors would show different activity levels in relation to the jackal relative abundance to potentially avoid predation/competition. We tested for different model combinations for each species, and chose the one with the lowest Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). Higher levels of human activity led to significant changes in all species except for the wild boar. Specifically, within sites where hunters were detected the activity levels of the investigated species were lower, meanwhile within sites frequently used by hikers’ wildlife species showed crepuscular/nocturnal activity. Even sites with high number of jackal sequences displayed different patterns for sympatric species, with only exception for the wild boar: the brown hare displayed lower the activity levels, meanwhile the roe deer and red fox showed crepuscular activity. Overall, activity curves displayed major changes when considering humans rather than jackal activity. Our findings suggest that both humans and jackals may shape activity levels within the mammalian community when apex predators are lacking. However, their effect may vary species by species, with humans having a stronger effect compared to jackal. Further research is needed to evaluate also environmental effects, as well as interacting effects.