The role of individual experience on escape response to human disturbance in the Alpine marmot Marmota marmota

Human presence in natural habitats is nowadays increasing and it is perceived by wild animals as a form of predation risk and thus, triggers specific anti-predator behaviours. Neverthless, previous research has suggested that individual experiences may greatly influence susceptibility to human disturbance, but information is scant and fragmentary. In the present study, I aim to investigate variation in anti-predatory behaviour of wildlife species with respect to different types of individual experiences, such as capture events, tourism disturbance intensity and hunting activities. Specifically, I assessed the escape response, a proxy to infer susceptibility to human disturbance, in a protected species, the Alpine marmot Marmota marmota. Marmots were studied in Italy, the Stelvio National Park (protected area) and the Seiser Alm in South-Tyrol (hunted area) during the summer of 2021. A subset of the studied animals was initially captured and marked for individual recognition. The results showed that capture events did not influence escape distance. Likewise, escape distance did not vary with different intensities of tourism-related disturbance but was stable throughout the summer season. Hunting activity induced a trend of increased escape distance in the short term (i.e., during the hunting period), while in the long term, however (i.e., in the season following hunting), there was no significant evidence on it. Have found a non-significant effects may be explained by the context during which the event occurred, or by learning processes, such as habituation and sensitization, that are not easy to detect with short-term analysis. Never-theless, our study revealed that seasonal hunting may lead animals to become temporarily more sensitive to human presence