The rapid warming of the Arctic may not only alter species’ abundances and distributions, but likely also the trophic interactions within and between ecosystems. On the high‐arctic tundra, extreme warm spells and associated rain‐on‐snow events in winter can encapsulate the vegetation entirely in ground‐ice (i.e., basal ice) and directly or indirectly affect plants, herbivores, and carnivores. However, the implications of such extreme events for trophic interactions and food‐web ecology are generally far from understood. Here, we show that wild Svalbard reindeer populations increasingly isolated by lack of sea‐ice respond to rain‐on‐snow and ice‐locked pastures by increased kelp consumption. Based on annual population surveys in late winters 2006–2015, the proportion of individual reindeer feeding along the shoreline increased the icier the winter. Stable isotope values (δ34S, δ13C, δ15N) of plants, washed‐ashore kelp, and fresh reindeer feces collected along coast‐inland gradients, confirmed ingestion of marine biomass by the reindeer in the shoreline habitat. Thus, even on remote islands and peninsulas increasingly isolated by sea‐ice loss, effects of climate change may be buffered in part by behavioral plasticity and increased use of resource subsidies. This marine dimension of a terrestrial herbivore's realized foraging niche adds to evidence that global warming significantly alters trophic interactions as well as meta‐ecosystem processes.
For free-ranging animals living in seasonal environments, hypometabolism (lowered metabolic rate) and hypothermia (lowered body temperature) can be effective physiological strategies to conserve energy when forage resources are low. to what extent such strategies are adopted by large mammals living under extreme conditions, as those encountered in the high Arctic, is largely unknown, especially for species where the gestation period overlaps with the period of lowest resource availability (i.e. winter). Here we investigated for the first time the level to which high arctic muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) adopt hypothermia and tested the hypothesis that individual plasticity in the use of hypothermia depends on reproductive status. We measured core body temperature over most of the gestation period in both free-ranging muskox females in Greenland and captive female muskoxen in Alaska. We found divergent overwintering strategies according to reproductive status, where pregnant females maintained stable body temperatures during winter, while non-pregnant females exhibited a temporary decrease in their winter body temperature. these results show that muskox females use hypothermia during periods of resource scarcity, but also that the use of this strategy may be limited to non-reproducing females. Our findings suggest a trade-off between metabolically-driven energy conservation during winter and sustaining foetal growth, which may also apply to other large herbivores living in highly seasonal environments elsewhere.
The extreme polar environment creates challenges for the resident invertebrate communities and the stress tolerance of some of these animals has been examined over many years. However, although it is well appreciated that standard air temperature records often fail to describe accurately conditions experienced at microhabitat level, few studies have explicitly set out to link field conditions experienced by natural multispecies communities with the more detailed laboratory ecophysiological studies of a small number of 'representative' species. This is particularly the case during winter, when snow cover may insulate terrestrial habitats from 3 extreme air temperature fluctuations. Further, climate projections suggest large changes in precipitation will occur in the polar regions, with the greatest changes expected during the winter period and, hence, implications for the insulation of overwintering microhabitats. To assess survival of natural High Arctic soil invertebrate communities contained in soil and vegetation cores to natural winter temperature variations, the overwintering temperatures they experienced were manipulated by deploying cores in locations with varying snow accumulation: No Snow, Shallow Snow (30cm) and Deep Snow (120cm). Air temperatures during the winter period fluctuated frequently between +3 and -24°C, and the No Snow soil temperatures reflected this variation closely, with the extreme minimum being slightly lower. Under 30cm of snow, soil temperatures varied less and did not decrease below -12°C. Those under deep snow were even more stable and did not decline below -2°C. Despite these striking differences in winter thermal regimes, there were no clear differences in survival of the invertebrate fauna between treatments, including oribatid, prostigmatid and mesostigmatid mites, Araneae, Collembola, Nematocera larvae or Coleoptera. This indicates widespread tolerance, previously undocumented for the Araneae, Nematocera or Coleoptera, of both direct exposure to at least -24°C and the rapid and large temperature fluctuations. These results suggest that the studied polar soil invertebrate community may be robust to at least one important predicted consequence of projected climate change.
1. Sample size sufficiency is a critical consideration for estimating resource selection functions (RSFs) from GPS-based animal telemetry. Cited thresholds for sufficiency include a number of captured animals M ≥ 30 and as many relocations per animal N as possible. These thresholds render many RSF-based studies misleading if large sample sizes were truly insufficient, or unpublishable if small sample sizes were sufficient but failed to meet reviewer expectations.2. We provide the first comprehensive solution for RSF sample size by deriving closed-form mathematical expressions for the number of animals M and the number of relocations per animal N required for model outputs to a given degree of precision. The sample sizes needed depend on just 3 biologically meaningful quantities: habitat selection strength, variation in individual selection and a novel measure of landscape complexity, which we define rigorously. The mathematical expressions are calculable for any environmental dataset at any spatial scale and are applicable to any study involving resource selection (including sessile organisms). We validate our analytical solutions using globally relevant empirical data including 5,678,623 GPS locations from 511 animals from 10 species (omnivores, carnivores and herbivores living in boreal, temperate and tropical forests, montane woodlands, swamps and Arctic tundra).
Species conservation in a rapidly changing world requires an improved understanding of how individuals and populations respond to changes in their environment across temporal scales. Increased warming in the Arctic puts this region at particular risk for rapid environmental change, with potentially devastating impacts on resident populations. Here, we make use of a parameterized full life cycle, individual‐based energy budget model for wild muskoxen, coupling year‐round environmental data with detailed ontogenic metabolic physiology. We show how winter food accessibility, summer food availability, and density dependence drive seasonal dynamics of energy storage and thus life history and population dynamics. Winter forage accessibility defined by snow depth, more than summer forage availability, was the primary determinant of muskox population dynamics through impacts on calf recruitment and longer term carryover effects of maternal investment. Simulations of various seasonal snow depth and plant biomass and quality profiles revealed that timing of and improved/limited winter forage accessibility had marked influence on calf recruitment (±10–80%). Impacts on recruitment were the cumulative result of condition‐driven reproductive performance at multiple time points across the reproductive period (ovulation to calf weaning) as a trade‐off between survival and reproduction. Seasonal and generational condition effects of snow‐rich winters interacted with age structure and density to cause pronounced long‐term consequences on population growth and structure, with predicted population recovery times from even moderate disturbances of 10 years or more. Our results show how alteration in winter forage accessibility, mediated by snow depth, impacts the dynamics of northern herbivore populations. Further, we present here a mechanistic and state‐based model framework to assess future scenarios of environmental change, such as increased or decreased snowfall or plant biomass and quality to impact winter and summer forage availability across the Arctic.
Background In highly seasonal environments, animals face critical decisions regarding time allocation, diet optimisation, and habitat use. In the Arctic, the short summers are crucial for replenishing body reserves, while low food availability and increased energetic demands characterise the long winters (9–10 months). Under such extreme seasonal variability, even small deviations from optimal time allocation can markedly impact individuals’ condition, reproductive success and survival. We investigated which environmental conditions influenced daily, seasonal, and interannual variation in time allocation in high-arctic muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) and evaluated whether results support qualitative predictions derived from upscaled optimal foraging theory. Methods Using hidden Markov models (HMMs), we inferred behavioural states (foraging, resting, relocating) from hourly positions of GPS-collared females tracked in northeast Greenland (28 muskox-years). To relate behavioural variation to environmental conditions, we considered a wide range of spatially and/or temporally explicit covariates in the HMMs. Results While we found little interannual variation, daily and seasonal time allocation varied markedly. Scheduling of daily activities was distinct throughout the year except for the period of continuous daylight. During summer, muskoxen spent about 69% of time foraging and 19% resting, without environmental constraints on foraging activity. During winter, time spent foraging decreased to 45%, whereas about 43% of time was spent resting, mediated by longer resting bouts than during summer. Conclusions Our results clearly indicate that female muskoxen follow an energy intake maximisation strategy during the arctic summer. During winter, our results were not easily reconcilable with just one dominant foraging strategy. The overall reduction in activity likely reflects higher time requirements for rumination in response to the reduction of forage quality (supporting an energy intake maximisation strategy). However, deep snow and low temperatures were apparent constraints to winter foraging, hence also suggesting attempts to conserve energy (net energy maximisation strategy). Our approach provides new insights into the year-round behavioural strategies of the largest Arctic herbivore and outlines a practical example of how to approximate qualitative predictions of upscaled optimal foraging theory using multi-year GPS tracking data.
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