Foetal Growth in the Reindeer

Roine, K; Nieminen, Mauri; Timisjärvi, J.

doi:10.1186/bf03546827

Cited by 21 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…This period coincides with the major growth of the foetus in reindeer (e.g. Krog, Wika & Savalov 1979, Roine, Nieminen & Timisjarvi 1982). During the last week of March, the Snøhetta area received large amounts of snow and local farmers could not remember similar snow depths in late April–May (P Fale, pers.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 54%

Relationship between calving time and physical condition in three wild reindeer Rangifer tarandus populations in southern Norway

Flydal

Reimers

2002

Wildlife Biology

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 54%

Relationship between calving time and physical condition in three wild reindeer Rangifer tarandus populations in southern Norway

Flydal

Reimers

2002

Wildlife Biology

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“…Each of these vascular forage classes contain more N than lichens [ 47 ]. While the differences are small, pregnant cows may have adjusted their diet to compensate for the additional protein demand of gestation [ 49 , 50 ]. Additionally, as winter progressed, the amount of lichen declined in the diets of all caribou which may have reflected a decline in the availability of lichen, an increase in the availability of other forages as snow melted, and/or a shift to vascular forages to acquire protein [ 16 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-Invasive Assessment of the Interrelationships of Diet, Pregnancy Rate, Group Composition, and Physiological and Nutritional Stress of Barren-Ground Caribou in Late Winter

2015

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The winter diet of barren-ground caribou may affect adult survival, timing of parturition, neonatal survival, and postpartum mass. We used microhistological analyses and hormone levels in feces to determine sex-specific late-winter diets, pregnancy rates, group composition, and endocrine-based measures of physiological and nutritional stress. Lichens, which are highly digestible but contain little protein, dominated the diet (> 68%) but were less prevalent in the diets of pregnant females as compared to non-pregnant females and males. The amount of lichens in the diets of pregnant females decreased at higher latitudes and as winter progressed. Pregnancy rates (82.1%, 95% CI = 76.0 – 88.1%) of adult cows were within the expected range for a declining herd, while pregnancy status was not associated with lichen abundance in the diet. Most groups (80%) were of mixed sex. Male: female ratios (62:100) were not skewed enough to affect the decline. Levels of hormones indicating nutritional stress were detected in areas of low habitat quality and at higher latitudes. Levels of hormones indicated that physiological stress was greatest for pregnant cows, which faced the increasing demands of gestation in late winter. These fecal-based measures of diet and stress provided contextual information for the potential mechanisms of the ongoing decline. Non-invasive techniques, such as monitoring diets, pregnancy rates, sex ratios and stress levels from fecal samples, will become increasingly important as monitoring tools as the industrial footprint continues to expand in the Arctic.

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“…Rather than using this small sample (n = 7), we estimated foetal age (in weeks) using data provided by Roine et al (1982), 15 who studied a much larger sample also from Finland. Using their data (Roine et al, 1982: their Table 1), the following 2-degree polynomial regression equation between mean metacarpal length (MC1) and foetal age (in weeks) was obtained: y = -0.0015x 2 + 0.3691x + 7.808 (R² = 0.9961). MC1 measurements from our sample were then used to estimate foetal age (in weeks).…”

Section: Estimating the Foetal Age Of Modern Individualsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Finland, Norway (Svalbard excluded) and Sweden, rut periods reported by different authors span from the 25th of September to the 19th of October, and calving periods from the 5th of May to the 7th of June, with a peak around mid-May (SI #3). For reindeer, implantation is not delayed (Leader-Williams & Rosser, 1983), and Roine et al (1982) Thus, despite an important variability, we used in our study mean values for conception and birth around, respectively, the 10th of October and the 18th of May, with a mean of 221 days of gestation.…”

Section: Estimating the Foetal Age Of Modern Individualsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Expanding the use of reindeer foetal bone measurements for zooarchaeological applications

Discamps,

Soulier

2024

Preprint

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When foetal bones are preserved in archaeological sites, they are often used to identify the seasonality of prey acquisition by past human populations and, subsequently, to discuss their lifestyle, their management of food resources, nomadic cycles, etc. To do so, zooarchaeologists use charts to estimate foetal age based on the growth of their bones. For reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), a species that was widely exploited since the Palaeolithic throughout Eurasia, existing reference data are limited and require the measurement of complete bones, a procedure that is rarely applicable to archaeological contexts in which bones are often fragmented. In this study we present a wide range of measurements (9-10 measurements per bone) taken on the humerus, radius, metacarpal, femur, tibia and metatarsal of 31 individuals housed at the Zoological Museum of the University of Oulu (Finland). With this large data set, a more accurate estimation of the time of death of reindeer foetus can be achieved using skeletal measurements, even in the case of fragmented bones. To facilitate the use of this referential, an open-access web interface (foetusmeteR) was designed in RShiny. This interface allows for the direct estimation of foetal age and season of death by entering a single skeletal measurement, as well as the possibility of estimating if two bones might correspond to the same individual using two different measurements. This new tool should help to discuss in more detail the condition of reindeer herds hunted in the past, the hunting techniques and strategies that may have been used by human groups, and allow for a more detailed reconstruction of the seasonal nomadic cycle of past societies that focused their subsistence onRangiferpopulations.

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Foetal Growth in the Reindeer

Cited by 21 publications

References 18 publications

Relationship between calving time and physical condition in three wild reindeer Rangifer tarandus populations in southern Norway

Relationship between calving time and physical condition in three wild reindeer Rangifer tarandus populations in southern Norway

Non-Invasive Assessment of the Interrelationships of Diet, Pregnancy Rate, Group Composition, and Physiological and Nutritional Stress of Barren-Ground Caribou in Late Winter

Expanding the use of reindeer foetal bone measurements for zooarchaeological applications

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