Too hot or too disturbed? Temperatures more than hikers affect circadian activity of females in northern chamois

Recreational activities often result in a spatial and/or temporal activity shift in wildlife because perceived as a risk. With the concurrent development of outdoors activities and increase in temperatures due to climate change, mountain species face increasing pressures in terms of managing their activity pattern to both limit risk exposure and reduce thermal discomfort. We investigated how female northern chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra rupicapra) adjust their summer circadian activity to spatio-temporal variations of both temperatures and hikers. Chamois behaviour was more affected by high temperatures than by hikers' disturbance. During the hottest days, they shifted their activity peak earlier in the morning (17 minutes earlier), were more active at night (+22%), less active during daytime (-10%), and had longer morning and evening peaks (+60 minutes and +20 minutes, respectively) compared to the coldest days. These behavioural adjustments led to a global activity only slightly different during the hottest (+5%) compared to coldest days. Conversely, hikers' disturbance had weak effects on activity levels and on the timing of activity peaks. This i