Wild boar males tend to spend summers separate from females who unite in sounders to raise their young.
This rather old publication by Dardaillion, M. (1988) offers a nice review of wild boar seasonal grouping patterns.
I have seen videos where male boars interact with sounders (possibly young males born in the previous spring/summer or subadults who have not yet reached sexual maturity).
While wild boar may breed throughout the year (hence, the potential of multiple litters under beneficial climate conditions in highly productive habitats, in many regions that are characterized by harsher climate (cold season), breeding is restricted to autumn and winter.
This is the time when adult males seek out the sounders and they travel together for a while until the males separate once more becoming solitary and the females gestate preparing for parturition, nursing and raising of the young.
I am curious regarding the habitat use during this period when the male boar briefly joins the sounder (but also when younger males might join the sounder temporarily).
Females with young probably select foraging habitats quite differently than solitary males and the lower risk as well as greater mobility (not followed by piglets) of the males might allow the males to explore and to perhaps find optimal habitat patches that demand the crossing of less optimal terrain or to find opportunistic resources (dumped agricultural waste, hay piles etc.).
In fact, the video that I have seen showed females foraging on hay alongside a male in summer but it was, of course, unclear whether they had discovered the resource separately and chanced upon it at the same time or if the young male had discovered the resource and desiring to remain in the relative security of the mother-offspring units group, he might have led the sounder to the abundant foraging resource not suffering great costs (there was plenty) but enjoying the company.
Unfortunately, I cannot find the video anymore but if I do, I will post the link here.
The ability by the males to roam wider and to explore might endow them with knowledge of habitat patches that are highly beneficial but secluded or not worth the risk for the females with the young, or temporarily available and easier discovered by individuals who are not restricted in their movements.
Thereby I have been wondering if the male presence in the group affects the decisions by the group over the use of the space.
Certainly, habitats are used also in accordance with seasonal availability of the dietary resources and other seasonal conditions (snow depth, shelter, thermoregulation etc.).
However, it might be interesting to study the wild boar habitat use patterns during the mating period when the male has joined the group (it would be more difficult to track situations when a young male has joined the sounder briefly during summer) in order to determine whether such habitats and habitat patches (and possibly types of resources) are used that were not characteristic for the sounders to utilize during spring and summer (without the male around and without the male’s experience and knowledge).
A long-term study might allow to distinguish between space use patterns in a specific sounder in different years when a different adult male has joined the group comparing these patterns to the male’s use of space during summer (solitary period).
Otherwise, it might be difficult to untangle the space use that has been affected by the female memory of seasonally optimal habitats vs. the space use determined by the male’s experiences during the solitary period.
Notes by Ieva 