Body mass measurements of wild boar from two French populations

Despite the importance of body growth in shaping life history tactics and population dynamics, exploring individual growth trajectories in the wild remains challenging. Here, we quantified wild boar growth trajectories at both the population and the individual levels using standard growth models (i.e. Gompertz, logistic, and monomolecular models) that encompass the expected range of growth shapes. According to current theories of life history evolution, we expect wild boar to display a sex-specific Gompertz type growth trajectory and lower size dimorphism in the poorer environment. While wild boar displayed the expected Gompertz type trajectory in the rich site at the population level, we found differences in growth shapes between the two populations and among individuals within each population. Asymptotic body mass, growth rate and timing of maximum growth rate differed as well, indicating a high flexibility of growth trajectories in wild boar. In addition, we found a cohort effect on asymptotic body mass suggesting that environmental conditions early in life shape body mass at adulthood. Our findings demonstrate that body growth trajectories in wild boar are context-, sex- and cohort-specific, differing between populations and among individuals within a population.