Weekend Overload: Day‐to‐Day Fluctuations of Outdoor Recreation Affect Wild Mammals' Space‐Use in a Popular Forest Reserve Near Florence, Italy

Natural and protected areas are increasingly used for outdoor recreation, with potentially negative consequences on wild mammals. Human visitation can be particularly concentrated during short periods, like weekends, especially in natural areas close to urban settings. Peaks of human presence could generate acute disturbance to wildlife, potentially affecting their temporal activity patterns or spatial distribution. To date, little evidence is available on the ‘weekend effect’ on mammals and current community-level research focuses only on their temporal responses. Here, we tested the spatial and temporal distribution of the medium-to-large wild mammal community in relation to day-to-day fluctuations of human activity occurring between working days and weekends. We deployed 52 camera-traps systematically within an EU Natura 2000 area located within the metropolitan area of Florence, central Italy, September–November 2022. We estimated that human visitation significantly peaked during weekends and holidays, while mammals' site-use was generally lower. Eight out of 10 mammal species seemed to spatially modulate their use of space to the fluctuations of human presence, both in relation to the rate of human passage and the proximity to roads. Conversely, we found no evidence of significant differences in temporal activity between mammals and humans during working days and weekends, as the temporal overlaps were generally low during both day types. Thus, spatial modulation of site use seems the most used short-term strategy to cope with bouts of high human visitation, with the temporal avoidance that may enable the longer-term tolerance of humans without preventing the use of preferred habitats.