Ecological Indicators 88 (2018) 43–50

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Ecological Indicators
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind

Biometrical measurements as efficient indicators to assess wild boar body T

condition
⁎
David Riscoa, Pilar Gonçalvesa, , Gregorio Mentaberreb, Nora Navarro-Gonzáleza,
Encarna Casas-Díazc, Diana Gassób, Andreu Colom-Cadenab, Xavier Fernández-Aguilarb,
Raquel Castillo-Contrerasb, Roser Velardeb, Oscar Barquero-Pérezd, Pedro Fernández-Llarioa,
⁎⁎
Santiago Lavínb, Carlos Fonsecae, Emmanuel Serranob,e,
a
Innovación en Gestión y Conservación de Ungulados S.L. (INGULADOS), Cáceres, Spain
b
Servei d’Ecopatologia de Fauna Salvatge (SEFaS), Departament de Medicina i Cirurgia Animals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain
c
GRI-BCN (Research Group on Infertility, Barcelona), Departament de Sanitat i Anatomia Animals, Facultat de Veterinária, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB),
Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain
d
Departament of Signal Theory and Communications, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Fuenlabrada, Madrid, Spain
e
Departamento de Biología & Cesam, Universidad de Aveiro (UA), Aveiro, Portugal

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Body condition (i.e., the amount of the energy stored in organs and tissues) is a key parameter that has been
Biometrical measurements related with health, reproductive performance and density of wild ungulates including the wild boar (Sus scrofa).
Boosted regression trees In this wild pig, a reference method to assess body condition has not yet been agreed and different procedures
Brisket fat thickness have been used in recent literature. The aim of this work was to generate an easy and reliable method based on
Sus scrofa
biometrical measurements and with the ability to predict body fat in live or die boars. For this, a total of 207
hunted wild boar from three Spanish populations with contrasting food availability were included in this study.
Sex, age, biometrical parameters (body weight, total length and chest girth) and body condition indicators
(brisket and rump fat thickness, kidney fat index (KFI), ratio between chest girth-total length and scaled mass
index) were assessed for each animal. A boosted regression trees (BRT) approach was carried out to find models
based on age, sex and biometrical features that predicted brisket fat thickness in the studied animals. BRT models
including sex, body weight, total length and chest girth as explanatory variables were able to predict brisket fat
thickness in wild boar (68–73% of deviance explained). These models were not influenced by the location of
sampling and their predictive values showed a good agreement with real brisket fat thickness (94.1–95.6).
Predictive values obtained in BRT models from each area also agreed with food availability suggesting this is a
valid indicator of body condition of wild boar in a broad range of environmental conditions.

1. Introduction
Mammals require energy to support the costs of basal metabolism
and other biological activities including growth, reproduction and
homeostasis. This energy is primarily stored in the form of glycogen and
fat by several tissues and organs that in turn increase in weight when a
positive energetic balance occurs (Parker et al., 2009). Fat is a rich
source of energy yielding twice as many calories than sugar or proteins
and represents the main energy source of vertebrates (Drewnowski
1992). The largest adipose tissue depots in mammals are the sub-
cutaneous white adipose tissue and the visceral white adipose tissue
(Driskell et al., 2014). These adipose tissues have an outstanding
capacity to adapt their sizes in response to food intake. Extreme var-
iations in adipose tissue mass are commonly observed between under
and overfeed individuals (Birsoy et al., 2013). Therefore, fat weight has
been used for more than half a century to describe energetic status,
commonly known as body condition, in a broad number of animal
species (Stevenson and Woods, 2006).
Body condition is a measure of the energy reserves of an organism
linking individual fitness and the environment (Bradford et al., 2012).
In wild ungulates, it has been related with nutritional status, health,
reproductive performance and population density (Albon et al., 1986,
Brunborg et al., 2004, Bender et al., 2008, Couturier et al., 2009, Santos
et al., 2013, Risco et al., 2016). Thus, monitoring body condition is an

⁎
Corresponding author at: Innovación en Gestión y Conservación de Ungulados SL. C/San Pedro de Alcántara 14, Cp:1001Cáceres, Spain.
⁎⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: pgoncalvesblanco@gmail.com (P. Gonçalves), emmanuel.serrano.ferron@gmail.com (E. Serrano).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2017.12.048
Received 24 October 2016; Received in revised form 5 October 2017; Accepted 18 December 2017
1470-160X/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
D. Risco et al.
essential tool in wildlife management to assess the population perfor-
mance, and eventually, to be able to detect possible imbalances before
serious problems arise (Morellet et al., 2007, Mattiello et al., 2009).
Different methods based on the estimation of body fat reserves have
been developed to measure the body condition in wild ungulates. Most
of them are invasive methods and only measurable in dead animals, like
the kidney fat index (KFI) (Riney 1955) or the bone marrow fat (Fuller
et al., 1986). Conversely, body condition in wildlife species could be
also measured by means of condition indices (CIs) that aim to sum-
marize in a single value the amount of energy reserves for a given
structural component of the body. Wildlife ecologist have developed a
plethora of CIs based on relating body mass to linear measures of body
size to assess body condition in fishes (Blackwell et al., 2000), frogs,
reptiles, birds (Green, 2001), and mammals including wild ungulates
(Schulte-Hostedde et al., 2001, Serrano et al., 2008). Though these non-
invasive methods are very useful to assess body condition in protected
species, CIs based on biometrical measures are difficult to interpret
because of the lack of studies on the relationships between these CIs and
direct measures of body fat reserves (Green, 2001).
Regarding wild suids, Stribling and Brisbin (1984) determined that
in feral swine total body fat reserves are highly correlated with brisket
fat thickness, but not with other measures and CIs such as KFI, rump fat
thickness or body mass. Therefore, methods based on brisket fat mea-
surement could be considered interesting to estimate body condition in
closely related animals such as the wild boar (Sus scrofa). Despite this,
heterogeneous methods like chest girth-total length ratio (Díez-Delgado
et al., 2014), chest girth-total length residuals (García-Jiménez et al.,
2015), KFI (Orłowska et al., 2013) or rump fat thickness (Cánovas et al.,
2015) have been used in the latest works in which body condition in
wild boar has been used as a variable.
The main aim of the present work was to generate a non-invasive,
easy and reliable method, based on morphometric measurements, able
to predict the wild boar brisket fat thickness to be used as a body
condition index. Furthermore, two sub-objectives were established: 1)
to assess the relationships between brisket fat thickness and some body
condition indicators of wild boar (Fat rump depth, KFI, chest girth-total
length ratio, chest girth-total length residuals and scaled mass index
(SMI); 2) to explore whether these body condition indices are asso-
ciated with potential food availability
2. Material and methods
2.1. Study areas
This study included wild boar from two areas in Catalonia, north-
east Spain (Els Ports de Tortosa i Beseit National Game Reserve and
Serra de Collserola Natural Park), and a private hunted estate located in
central Spain (Oropesa, Toledo). These study areas were selected as
they represent a gradient of food availability as described below.
Els Ports de Tortosa i Beseit National Game Reserve (PTB), in
Tarrragona province (40° 48′ 28"N, 0° 19′ 17"E) is a calcareous moun-
tain region (about 35000 ha) with high orographic complexity that
results in a rugged and abrupt terrain with numerous ravines and steep
slopes. The predominant habitat in this reserve is natural pine (Pinus
spp) grove (39%) followed by natural oak (Quercus spp) grove (15%)
and its climatology is widely variable depending on the altitude with a
mean temperature of 9 °C but whose range is between −9 °C in winter
and 31 °C in summer. In this area, food availability is scarce due to wild
boar sharing the limited natural resources (pastures, acorns) with do-
mestic animals (mainly cattle) and no supplementary feeding is sup-
ported (Navarro-González et al., 2013b).
Serra de Collserola Natural Park (CNP), in Barcelona province (41°
44
Ecological Indicators 88 (2018) 43–50
25′ 28" N, 2° 6′ 32" E) is a massif that rises over the Barcelona
Metropolitan Area. This is an 8000 ha protected area where forest
formed by aleppo pines (Pinus halepensis) and holm oaks (Quercus ilex)
predominates. This park has a Mediterranean climate with mean tem-
peratures about 15 °C without high variation among seasons. Food
availability at CNP is moderate once, apart from natural food resources
(e.g. acorns) (Cahill et al., 2012), wild boar can find a great amount of
domestic rubbish in bins and many times, they are artificially fed by
some people (Navarro-González et al., 2013a).
The private hunting estate (HE) is located in Oropesa (Toledo,
central Spain) (40° 00′ 41.2"N, 5° 09′ 14.3"W). This area has a con-
tinental thermal Mediterranean climate, with hot dry summers (26 °C to
28 °C) and mild and moderately wet winters (7 °C to 10 °C). The vege-
tation consists mainly of scrubland (genus Cistus), arbutus (Arbutus
unedo), and evergreen oak forests (Quercus suber). The area of this estate
(about 2000 ha) is surrounded by a fence to prevent dispersion of the
approximately 350 wild boar that inhabit in there. Food availability is
very high in this area since animals are continuously fed with a wild
boar fodder (Jabalí Familia, INALSA S.A.) that is supplied in six troughs
located throughout the estate.
2.2. Wild boar sample
A total of 207 wild boar were included in this study: 62 from CNP,
82 from PTB and 63 from HE. These animals were hunted between
2009 and 2011 (animals from CNP and PTB) and 2013 (animals from
HE) in different hunting events. Sampled animals from CNP and PTB
did not show significant differences in their body condition among
hunting seasons (2009–2011), assuming similar food productivity each
year. Animals from HE are continuously fed and not differences in body
condition are expected among different seasons.
Sex (124 females and 83 males) and age (ranging between one
month to 6.5 years) of all the animals were recorded. Age was de-
termined following standard methods (Boitani and Mattei, 1992,
Gonçalves et al., 2016). This parameter was used to categorize animals
in three groups: youngs (younger than 1 year), yearlings (animals with
ages between one and two years) and adults (older than two years). In
addition, all the animals were weighted (Bw hereafter) before being
eviscerated (+/− 1 g) and measured with a nylon tape with a nearest
precision of 0.1 cm: total length (TI. from the tip of the snout to the root
of the tail) and chest girth (Chg).
2.3. Measuring body condition indices
2.3.1. Brisket fat thickness and rump fat thickness
Brisket fat thickness and rump fat thickness were determined fol-
lowing previously described procedures (Stribling and Brisbin 1984).
Briefly, we sliced through the skin and subcutaneous fat 1–2 cm to the
left of the midline of the sternum, at a point about midway between the
forelegs, and measured the brisket fat thickness with a metallic ruler to
the nearest 1 mm. Similarly we also measured the rump fat thickness by
slicing perpendicularly through the skin and subcutaneous fat, 2–3 cm
to the left of the spine at a point about midway between the base of the
tail and the last thoracic vertebra (see Supplementary file 1). Rump fat
thickness could not be measured in animals from HE because of carcass
were marketed and slicing through the skin in that area was not al-
lowed.
2.3.2. Kidney fat index (KFI)
KFI was assessed according to protocols previously described in wild
boar (Orłowska et al., 2013). Kidneys together with their surrounding
fat were removed and stored in plastic bags. Once in laboratory,
D. Risco et al. Ecological Indicators 88 (2018) 43–50

kidneys were dried with paper towels and weighed (kidney mass, KM)
to the nearest 0.01 g without their capsule and attached fat. The at-
tached fat was also weighed (kidney fat, KF) and the KFI was calculated
as KF/KM (%). This parameter could not be estimated in animals from
HE and hence, it was calculated in 154 out of 207 animals studied.
2.3.3. Body condition indices based on body measurements
Table 1
Information about technical parameters (learning rate (lr) and tree complexity (tc)),
number of trees (Trees), percentage of deviance explained (% Dev) and relative im-
portance (% RI) of the variables used in boosted regression tree models predicting brisket
fat thickness in wild boar. Results are presented for the sum of the three studied areas and
per area (Ports de Tortosa i Beceit National Game Reserve (PTB) and Collserola Natural
Park (CNP) from northeast Spain and private hunting states (HE) from central Spain). Bw:
body weight with viscera, Chg: Chest girth, Tl: total length.

Several body condition indices were calculated based on body Proposed variables Parameters Trees % Dev % RI
measurements. A ratio between chest girth and total length (Ghg-Ti
ratio), and residuals from an ordinary regression between chest girth Animals from three studied areas
and total length (Chg-Ti residuals) were calculated. Furthermore, we Bw + Chg + Tl + Sex + Age* Lr = 0.005 1050 0.73 Bw = 46.5
Tc = 2 Chg = 29.7
estimated the scaled mass index (SMI) of each animal. Scaled mass
Tl = 12.4
index is a method to estimate body condition based on the regression Sex = 11.3
between body mass and a body linear measure (total length in this case)
Bw + Chg + Sex Lr = 0.005 750 0.70 Bw = 55.2
with a statistical modifications based on central principle of scaling to Tc = 2 Chg = 32.5
solve conceptual problems generated by residual approaches (Peig and Sex = 12.3
Green, 2009). Bw + Tl + Sex Lr = 0.005 1100 0.72 Bw = 71.3
Tc = 2 Tl = 14.9
2.4. Statistical analysis Sex = 13.08

Chg + Tl + Sex Lr = 0.004 950 0.68 Chg = 56.5

2.4.1. Relationships between brisket fat thickness and other body condition Tc = 2 Tl = 30.9
indices Sex = 12.6
In order to assess the agreement between most commonly body PTB
condition indices used in wild boar (rump fat thickness, KFI, Chl-Tl Bwt + Chg + Tl + Sex + Age Lr = 0.005 1050 0.76 Bw = 52
Tc = 3 Chg = 16
ratio, Chg-Tl residuals and SMI) and the brisket fat thickness, we ex-
Age = 13.2
plored the correlation between each index and this fat measurement. Tl = 10.7
Spearman coefficient was used to evaluate correlations, which were Sex = 8.1
considered significant when p-values were less than 0.05. CNP
Bw + Chg + Tl + Sex + Age Lr = 0.003 950 0.65 Bw = 33.1
2.4.2. Depicting effects of food availability in body condition indices Tc = 3 Chg = 30.9
The association between the previously mentioned indices (brisket Tl = 23.6
Age = 6.7
fat thickness, Ch-Tl ratio, Ch-Tl residuals and SMI) that could be esti-
Sex = 5.7
mated in all the studied areas and the food availability was tested
HE
comparing average values of these parameters among populations using
Bw + Chg + Tl + Sex + Age Lr = 0.003 950 0.63 Bw = 40.1
Kruskal Wallis test (parametric assumption could not be accepted). Post Tc = 3 Chg = 20.7
hoc analyses using the Nemenyi test were also carried out to find out Sex = 19.2
groups showing significant differences. Differences in body condition Age = 11.1
indices among populations were assessed in each age group separately Tl = 9

because of fat tissues development is not constant during animal growth

* According 10-fold cross-validation technique used to fit models, age was not included
(Chesworth et al., 1998). Tendency to accumulate fat rises with the age in final model.
of the animals (Chesworth et al., 1998) and hence, age class should be
taken into account when comparing fat reserves among animals.

2.4.3. Predicting brisket fat thickness technique (Hastie et al., 2009).

Statistical approaches based on the boosted regression trees (BRT)
was used to predict brisket fat thickness (response variable) in wild
boar using morphometric measurements (Bw, Tl, Chg) and individual
factors (sex and age) as explanatory variables.
BRTs are based on the idea of adaptively combining large numbers
of relatively simple tree models to optimize predictive performance
(Elith et al., 2008, Hastie et al., 2009). This method has been widely
used to generate predictive models in ecological and biological studies
(Elith et al., 2008, Gonçalves et al., 2016) and it is a useful tool to deal
with common problems related with ecological data such as multi-
collinearity (Dormann et al., 2013).
In a first step, an initial model using all the explanatory variables
proposed to predict brisket fat thickness (Bw, Tl, Chg, sex and age) was
fitted following described procedures. Briefly, two free parameters
(“learning rate” and “tree complexity”) were fixed following standard
criteria (Elith et al., 2008). The number of trees, the estimated deviance
in the final BRT model and the final number of explanatory variables
included on it, were calculated using a 10-fold cross-validation (CV)
Subsequently, to evaluate the influence of single or multiple ex-
planatory variables in brisket fat thickness prediction, sequential
models were build following a similar procedure and removing one or
more of the initially proposed variables (see Table 1). Once all these
models were obtained and optimized, predicted values of fat thickness
for each animal were calculated and compared with real thickness using
the Bland-Altman method (Bland and Altman 1999).
Finally, because models proposed in this work to predict brisket fat
thickness are based on morphometric features and these features may
change among wild boar living in different areas (Herre, 1986), three
BRT models (including all the explanatory variables) were run using
animals from each population separately. Results obtained were com-
pared to validate the goodness of fit in the three studied areas. All the
statistical calculations were carried out in R software 3.3.3 version
(Team 2017) and the packages “gbm” (Ridgeway 2013) and “Blan-
dAlmantLeh” (Bernhard 2015).

45
D. Risco et al.
Table 2
Spearman rank correlation between the different indices used to assess body condition in
wild boar and brisket fat thickness a proxy for body fat in wild boar.
Method r R2
Fat rump depth 0.90 0.81
Kidney Fat Index 0.61 0.37
Chg-Tl ratio 0.44 0.19
Scaled Mass Index 0.16 0.03
Chg- Tl residuals 0.21 0.04
3. Results
3.1. Relationships between brisket fat thickness and other body condition
indices
After exploring correlations between brisket fat thickness and dif-
ferent body condition indices we observed that most of our biometrical
indicators namely: rump fat thickness, KFI, Ch-Tl ratio, Ch-Tl residuals
and the SMI, showed a significant positive correlation with brisket fat
thickness explaining between 81% and 3% of its observed variability
(see Table 2).
3.2. Prediction of brisket fat thickness with BRT models
After carrying out the BRT modelling process using all the ex-
planatory variables proposed (Bw, Chg, Tl, sex and age, (see Table 1),
we obtained a final brisket fat predictive model that was fitted ex-
cluding the variable “age” and showed an explained deviance percen-
tage of 73%. The contribution of each explanatory variable can be
graphically observed in Fig. 2. Briefly, Bw and Chg had the greatest
influence (46.5% and 29.7% respectively) showing a positive correla-
tion with brisket fat thickness. Total length and sex had relative im-
portance of 12.4 and 11.3% respectively. Greater brisket fat thickness
was observed in females comparing to those observed in males.
BRT models after removing one, two or three of the explanatory
variable proposed (Bw, Tl or Chg) explained a percentage of deviance
between 72% and 68% (see Table 1). The relationship between brisket
fat thickness and explanatory variables was similar than those observed
in the original model, which included all the variables.
Predictive BRT models proposed showed an agreement with real
brisket fat thickness between 94.1% and 95.6% (Fig. 3). The model in
which all the variables were included (Bw, Chg, Tl and sex) showed an
agreement of 94.63% (A) similarly to the model in which the variable
Tl was removed (B). The highest agreement (95.6%) was obtained using
the model in which the variable BW was removed (C) whereas the least
agreement was observed in the model in which Chg was not included
(94.1%) (D).
When BRT models including all the explanatory variables were run
by areas (CNP, PTB and HE), we obtained three models explaining a
percentage of deviance between 76% and 63%. In all of these models
the most influent variables were Bw and Chg, reaching between 68%
and 61% of the relative importance within the models (see Table 1) and
always showing a positive correlation with the response variable
(Fig. 2).
3.3. Depicting effects of food availability in body condition indices
Brisket fat thickness, brisket fat thickness predictions (by BRT) and
the Chg-Tl ratio showed significant differences among populations in all
the age classes (young, yearling and adult). Mean values of these
Ecological Indicators 88 (2018) 43–50
parameters were significantly higher in HE (high food availability) than
in PTB (scarce food availability) in animals belonging to all age classes.
Furthermore, in some cases significant differences were detected be-
p value tween mean values obtained in HE and CNP or in values observed in
CNP and PTB (see Fig. 1). Otherwise, no significant differences were
< 0.001 found between Chg-Tl residuals and SMI among populations.
< 0.001
< 0.001
0.003 4. Discussion
0.52
Results obtained in this work show that BRT modelling based on
biometrical features is an easy and effective method to assess fat re-
serves in wild boar. In fact, the combination of a set of morphological
measurements explains between 72 and 68% of the observed variability
in the brisket fat thickness. Furthermore, their predictive values show
an agreement with real brisket fat thickness of about 95%, which is
considered an acceptable percentage when comparison between
methods is carried out (Bland and Altman, 1999).
Brisket fat thickness was used as response variable to run BRT
models (and no other body condition indicators such as KFI) since it is a
measure of the subcutaneous white adipose tissue (SWAT). In swine,
body weight increments are directly related to SWAT increases
(Hammond and Murray, 1937; Richmond and Berg, 1971; McEvoy
et al., 2007) and thus, SWAT thickness can be used as a proxy for body
reserves and individual performance. Furthermore, brisket fat thickness
is the only indicator that has been empirically correlated with body fat
reserves in feral swine that are closely related to the wild boar (Stribling
and Brisbin, 1984).
Brisket fat thickness showed a significant correlation with some
methods recently employed to assess body condition in the wild boar,
mainly with rump fat thickness (r = 0.90) and KFI (r = 0.61). The high
correlation between brisket and rump fat thickness is not surprising
since both are SWAT depot measures (Driskell et al., 2014). On the
other hand, KFI, as an indicator based on visceral white adipose tissue
(VWAT), correlates worst with brisket fat thickness. VWAT represents a
much smaller amount than the other major fat depots (SWAT) and re-
mains relatively constant. Therefore, its ability as body condition in-
dicator is more limited. Low (3%) and null correlation was found be-
tween brisket fat thickness and SMI and chest girth-total length
residuals respectively. A plausible interpretation for these results is the
fact that SMI consistently standardize the size of animals (Peig and
Green, 2010). In our case size is related to fat reserves as revealed by
the correlations between ratios on size measurements (e.g., Chg-Tl
ratio) and our fat indicator. On the other hand, the lack of correlation
between the Chg-Tl residuals and brisket fat thickness may be justified
for a violation of any of the assumptions required for considering mass-
size residuals as measures of body condition (Green, 2001).
In addition, brisket fat thickness showed an agreement with the food
availability of each studied area, suggesting that it is a valid tool to be
used as a nutritional status indicator. Brisket fat was higher in areas
with greater food availability when animals belonging to the same age
class were compared.
When predictive BRT models were run using animals from each of
the three areas separately, they were able to predict brisket fat thick-
ness in all the studied areas in a similar way (percentage of deviance
explained between 76% and 63%). Furthermore, the relationship be-
tween explanatory variables and the response variable was coincident
in these areas suggesting that the model obtained using all the animals
is widely applicable and their predictive results are not influenced by
morphological differences that could exist among wild boar populations
(Herre, 1986).
BRT modelling has enabled us to develop different models that,
using easy-measurable biometrical features as explanatory variables,
are able to predict accurately the brisket fat thickness as a body
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D. Risco et al. Ecological Indicators 88 (2018) 43–50

Fig. 1. Mean values obtained using different body

condition indices in three study areas with different
food availability: scarce (PTB), medium (CNP) and
high (HE). Results have been divided by age classes:
young (up t 12 months), yearling (between 13 and
24 months) or adults (older than 25 months).
* = Significant differences between HE and PTB.
** = Significant differences between HE and PTB
and between HE and CNP. *** = Significant differ-
ences between HE and PTB and between CNP and
PTB.**** = Significant differences between HE and
PTB, HE and CNP and between CNP and PTB.

condition indicator in the wild boar as summarised in Fig. 4. Further- based on such models (see Supplementary file 2).
more, BRT modelling has enabled us to generate electronic resources Explanatory variables proposed (Bw, Tl, Chg, sex and age) to predict
for wild boar managers who can introduce their own data (sex, chest brisket fat are easily measurable in both dead and live animals. Thus, to
girth, total length, body weight) and obtain a brisket fat estimation explore nutritional status of wild boar populations, we can obtain these

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D. Risco et al. Ecological Indicators 88 (2018) 43–50

Fig. 2. Partial Dependence Plots (PDP) showing the marginal effect of each explanatory variable on the response variable (brisket fat thickness), considering the average effect of the
other independent variables. PDP were obtained in models using all the studied animals, and also using exclusively animals from each of the three studied areas.

parameters in hunting events in which a representative percentage of
the population is hunted, or in farms where weighting and measuring
wild boar is feasible. Furthermore, proposed models that do not include
all the explanatory variables have also shown a good agreement with
real brisket fat thickness. In fact, information about sex, Tl and Chg
could be enough to work out accurate predictions on brisket fat in the
wild boar. These measurements could be estimated using wild boar
photographs taken in long distance or by camera traps, as has been
described in other mammals (Lambert et al., 2012; Willisch et al.,
2013).
Assessing body condition using easy-measurable methods in the
wild boar could bring important management implications. In recent
decades wild boar populations have increased notably around the world
(Massei et al., 2015) and this species has become one of the most im-
portant game species in many countries, including in Spain. Many wild
boar populations live in fenced estates and are fed with supplemental
food routinely. In this scenario, managers need validated tools to assess
the nutritional status of these animals in order to avoid the deleterious
consequences of overabundance. On the other hand, studies focused on
monitoring free-ranging wild boar using GPS trackers (Zoetis, 2009;
Müller et al., 2013) need to assess body condition of marked animals
before relies. We hope that this work will help researchers to easily
assess body condition in live boars not only in previously mentioned
situations but also in further scenarios where the body condition as-
sessment by no-invasive methods would be required.

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Acknowledgements
D. Risco was supported by a Torres Quevedo Grant of the Ministerio
de Economía y Competitividad of Spain (PTQ14-06663) and by the
postdoctoral program of the Gobierno de Extremadura (Ref PO14024).
E. Serrano was funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y
Competitividad (MINECO) through a Ramon y Cajal agreement (RYC-
2016-21120). We would like thank Johan Espunyes for his help in
elaborating the silhouettes for illustrating the procedure for predicting
body condition from body measurements.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the
online version, at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2017.12.048.
49
Ecological Indicators 88 (2018) 43–50
Fig. 3. Bland-Altman plots showing the agreement between real
brisket fat thickness and the predictive values obtained by BRT
models using a different set of explanatory variables. X axis re-
presents the difference between observed brisket fat thickness and
the predicted value. Y axis represents the mean of the observed
and the predicted brisket fat thickness.
Fig. 4. A) Biometry measurements considered in this study: Total
length (Tl), chest girth (Chg). *Tl was measured from the snout to
the base of the tail following the dorsal contour of the animal. B)
Table summarizing the biometrical parameters required for as-
sessing body condition (fat accumulation) of wild boars. The first
three models (A, B, C) require to know the weight, and eventually
the age, of wild boar. The last model does not require to know
neither the weight nor the age of individuals. The prediction error
(%) and the R script required for calculations (see supplementary
file 2) have also been shown.
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