Livestock guardian dogs as surrogate top predators? How Maremma sheepdogs affect a wildlife community

Use of livestock guardian dogs ( LGD s) to reduce predation on livestock is increasing. However, how these dogs influence the activity of wildlife, including predators, is not well understood. We used pellet counts and remote cameras to investigate the effects of free ranging LGD s on four large herbivores (eastern gray kangaroo, common wombat, swamp wallaby, and sambar deer) and one mesopredator (red fox) in Victoria, Australia. Generalized mixed models and one‐ and two‐species detection models were used to assess the influence of the presence of LGD s on detection of the other species. We found avoidance of LGD s in four species. Swamp wallabies and sambar deer were excluded from areas occupied by LGD s; gray kangaroos showed strong spatial and temporal avoidance of LGD areas; foxes showed moderately strong spatial and temporal avoidance of LGD areas. The effect of LGD s on wombats was unclear. Avoidance of areas with LGD s by large herbivores can benefit livestock production by reducing competition for pasture and disease transmission from wildlife to livestock, and providing managers with better control over grazing pressure. Suppression of mesopredators could benefit the small prey of those species. Synthesis and applications: In pastoral areas, LGD s can function as a surrogate top‐order predator, controlling the local distribution and affecting behavior of large herbivores and mesopredators. LGD s may provide similar ecological functions to those that in many areas have been lost with the extirpation of native large carnivores.